Harry Potter and the Deck Master
by Key and WolfStar-SCA
Summary: Baced on the manga and OotP. Sakura and Syaoran's shopping in Daigon Alley come to an end. Elsewhere, the bored Weasley twins challenge the remaining Marauders to a prank-off.
1. Notes on Culture and Characterization

Notes on Culture and Characterization

This section is not a must-read, and indeed it may even bore some fans who do not care for such things, but for those fans who are interested, this is just a section where I explain the cultures and histories created for this story. The aim of this section is to explain many questions the general public has asked as well as to just share a world that took much thought and planning to build, that I fear may never be able to fit neatly into the storyline. This section should grow as more ideas come and details are let out into the writing, and sadly at the moment is mainly Card Captor Sakura-centric, so please, if you wish to read it, then check back on it from time to time. Also, though all these highly thought out ideas are free to the public's use, some level of mention if you take something directly would be appreciate...

**The Theory of Magic:**

Sorcery: Alignments, and the Elements

In the world of Card Captors, we are introduced to the concept of the drawing source of a mage's power. The two most prominently named were sun and moon, though the title character, Sakura, drew her magic from her own special star, indicating that there are others in existence. It is said that Clow was both sun and moon, and that's why he was so powerful, it is also said that since Yue is moon magic that he is unable to replenish his magic on his own and so he needs to eat a lot. It can further be examined that due to a need to be balanced, sun must have an equally crippling trait that has not yet been verified.

It is said that each of the Clow Cards were under either Yue or Cerberus. Light and Dark were the first under the Guardians, but the four top elements also were split between them as fire and earth under sun and water and wind under moon. It is also stated that Syaoran, under the alignment of the moon, was drawn to Yukito because he was such a strong source of the moons power, though he was driven away from Mizuki Kaho because her lunar attribute was just too different.

Also, regarding Clow and Eriol, their magic is often referred to as "dark" magic. Everything from the calling of the original sealing staff to Eriol's references at the end of the manga to the nature of dark magic as opposed to Sakura's light magic indicates that there is something more to the alignment of a sorcerer than merely sun or moon. Also it's said by him that it is not in the nature of dark magic to be able to block other magic. Though he stopped Syaoran's attempts to locate him, whether the art shown was the spell that Syaoran was casting, or Eriol's counter-spell is the reader's discretion. The understanding that I have come to is that dark magic, or the yin, can not block magic, only cast their own spells to attack the spell attacking them. The balancing weakness of light magic, or yang, was never examined.

Cerberus and Ruby Moon are both affiliated with the light magic as well as the western style of magic, while Yue and Spinel Sun are dark and eastern magic. Could there be a connection between light and dark magic and eastern and western magic? Also, a little side note is that the Guardians personalities seem to be grouped the same way as their affiliation to magic, so could that affect the personalities of guardian beasts? And what about humans, or other life forms in general? Could one know the affiliation of another's magic just by their behavior? Sakura is light, and she is very emotion-driven, letting her feelings show and not worrying about anything, much like Kero and Nakuru. Eriol is dark, he is calm and calculating and will patiently observe the situation before deciding the best course of action, like Yue and Spinel. Was that just coincidence? Am I reading too far into things? Only the original writers can say for sure.

The Sorcerer's Tools

Sorcery uses a number of different mediums of different shapes, sizes, and styles. Here I will explain some of the most basic styles of mediums for easy reference and clarity. First off though, is the reason for using these tools. A Sorcerer's magic is pulled not from any item, but from the sorcerer themselves, and therefore is very taxing on the caster, and can in some instances even lead to death. The tools are used to focus and channel the magic into a more concise spell, enabling the caster to use their power more efficiently.

Magic circles are used by sorcerers in order to harness the usage of certain alignments or elements. Each sect of sorcery has its circle that they use in order to call on the energies of nature to aid in their casting. Though it is common to use a prominent circle, most sorcerers know at least fifty separate circle designs. Circles are best drawn on an active element, such as rock, sand, a tree, though they can also be drawn or carved into paper, fabric, personal possessions, etc. Circles are made up of symbols and ruins which explain the magic's fundamental basics. Alignments, affiliations, aspects, attribute, and more are all revealed in the markings and placements of those markings.

Beyond just the circles, there are many other physical tools used in the channeling of magic. Though spells can be cast without them, these items are used to boost the spells power. In some instances, multiple items can be used to magnify the magic greatly. For Sakura, these items are namely her two staves that she uses in the series, as well as the cards. Where Syaoran is concerned, he had his sword, his ofuda, and a third tool in his rashinban. He proved that the rashinban was used for more then just finding the cards, he also used it in his attempt to track Eriol through his coat, and when the Final Judgement was drawing near in the fifth volume, he pointed out that the rashinban was useless because there was too much magic interference around that it couldn't get a solid reading on any one thing.

Even the Guardians seem to have their own magic amplifiers, though not in the form of a staff or weapon like the children. They instead appear to use crystals, as each of them have gems on them in their character designs. And in the anime, Spinel Sun channeled Eriol's power through the staff resinating with the gem in his forehead. Its not impractical to assume that each of the guardians channel their magic through their masters, especially with the reference made in the final battle between the four Guardians about the "difference in the master's strength".

Means of Teaching

Wizardry, it appears, is taught solely in established schools by masters of the skill. They begin their training once they have reached puberty and continue for a seven year stretch. They have no university or post-school education, yet it is verified on several accounts that somewhere nearing half of the spells possible are never learned by your average witch or wizard. It can be assumed, therefore, that the majority of the more complicated spell work is either on a job related need-to-know basis, or else you need to go and buy the books yourself and learn them that way. This would give the mages born into the older families an advantage, due to their access to pre-established libraries, some of which may contain spells lost, forbidden, or otherwise out of the circle of print.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, start their study of magic from the earliest age possible. They are taught through a master and apprentice system, often changing masters several times in life in search for more challenges and new spells. They learn a variety of ruins, circle patterns, and incantations to enable them to cast their magic more efficiently and not put such a tremendous strain upon their own bodies.

Danger and its Effect on Magic Potential and Output

In the world of Wizardry, magic without a wand is quite possible. Every magic child does it, those who can cast magic more freely are often looked upon as being more powerful than those who can't. Harry and Tom Riddle were two examples of children who used wandless-magic quite often in their youth. The problem is that the magic is not only unpredictable, it's also more of a self-preservation technique than anything else. When Harry felt overly bullied, or scared, he cast magic to get out of the situation, or on rare occasions, punish the bully (like Dudley falling into the snake's tank). Tom, I believe, discovered that when he became livid at someone, things would happen to them, and so he learned to harness this magic.

Neville cast his first spell to save himself when he was dropped out a window. The fact that his family was attempting to force magic out of him by doing such things on a regular basis supports my theory. It is possible that Hogwarts, among all of it's other wards and enchantments, has some sort of spell on it that stops the students from using such an unpredictable, emotionally based thing as wandless magic, but I could be wrong. Yet even still, even with the wand, whenever Harry has faced his toughest trials, his magic became far more powerful than otherwise. How else would he have managed a Patronus that could take out all those Dementors, or for three first-years to win against a Mountain Troll?

Wizardry seems to be based on the fight or flight instinct, using the adrenaline to tap into the spell work; however Sorcery, which is also a magic that seems to require some form of necessity, also seems to require a certain level of concentration and can become weaker if you let your fears and emotions run away with you. Eriol, in the anime, often told Syaoran that if he wanted to become more powerful, he'd have to calm down and concentrate. Syaoran has forever told Sakura to stop crying and concentrate to get through things. It also seems as though a certain level of determination is needed, though this may just be in order to continue casting the magic even when it's draining on the body.

Whenever Sakura got into too much trouble, everyone--whether they had magic or not--seemed to always say "it's Sakura, so it'll be alright". And indeed, when she would say the line herself, her special "unbeatable spell" as it came to be known, it would give her the determination and confidence to keep going, and therefore her spells would be more powerful. Now, that could just be because it cleared away her doubt and fears, allowing her to concentrate on her magic more completely, or it could have some other significance to the spell work that has yet to be determined. It could even have to do simply because she is affiliated with the light magic, so something about those feelings improved her spell work. There is too little information in those regards to make a logical conclusion at this time, further research will be needed on this subject.

Emotions and their Effect on Wizardry (*NEW* 07/27/07 = proof of how long I've been meaning to update...)

As mentioned above, Wizardry is based off of the fight-or-flight instinct. With out a wand, the caster must reach an emotional high, most often of fear or rage. It has been evidenced that some magic is more inclined to be cast on an emotional high then others. But as much as purpose of the magic goes, in several instances it's been proven that magic also requires specific emotions to cast effectively.

The Patronus, for example, is one of the most obvious spells requiring positive emotions. The very fact that one must find their happiest memory to harness is proof enough on this theory. Without the positive energy, the spell would fail to cause the effect required to protect the caster. The charm to banish Boggarts appears to be the same way, you must harness the feelings of joy and humor to chase away your fears.

While the Unforgivable Curses, it seems, require emotions of loathing and cruelty. Though the exact means in which they are used is uncertain, one can assume it is—like with the opposing positive emotions—used by focusing on an image or event in your past which causes the necessary seething you require.

It appears, for all sanity sake, that as much as Sorcery seems to be becoming in control of your emotions in order to become calm, Wizardry is becoming in control of your emotions to choose which extreme you wish to achieve. Very much apposing means of casting magic, though neither are completely beneficial or detrimental.

**Guardians Existence**

Purpose in the Sorcerer's World

It is without question at this point that Sorcery and Wizardy are two very different magic styles. Sorcery requires, as discussed higher up, absolute concentration. In this state, Sorcerers are vulnerable, too focused on their spell work to be able to defend from an attack. It has also been brushed upon the idea that stronger magic needs stronger concentration, and a longer time to gather energy to cast said spells. This leaves the caster at quite a disadvantage when it comes to casting Sorcery in any form of combat. In such a state, they could easily be taken out by a physical blow, or by a slightly faster spell. And this is why Guardians were created.

Sometimes in history and varying religions they have been referred to as 'familiars', Guardians exist to defend their masters in their times of vulnerability, and to tend to them while they recuperate from a particularly complicated bit of spell work. It is impractical to assume that magic users could support a Guardian who is at full power all the time, especially when they are drained for power themselves, and so Guardians exist in two forms: their true form and their sealed form. Their sealed form is often small, having very little magical output, and therefore requiring very little magic from their masters.

Since the power it requires to sustain a Guardian is great, few sorcerers have the power to do so on their own. But without a power source, Guardians would not be able to continue living, and so the immense magic put into them would be a waste. For that reason, Guardians have been given a special magic to allow them to bond with items that contain great power, such as the Sword of the Elements that Syaoran wields, or Kaho's Moon Bells, or several other special tools and items handed down within the magical families. Connecting oneself to the items like this does admittedly drain the magic power of the tool much faster than what would otherwise take place, but a bit of fancy spell work once a decade by a group of Sorcerers is a far better means to sustaining a Guardian than a continual drain of a single sorcerer's power, that would leave them exhausted and unable to do anything else with their magic.

Cultural Reactions and Relations to Guardians

By modern day, as rare as Guardians are, they are a rather well known concept, often owned by the older families and clans. To have a Guardian is a thing of prestige, an honor bestowed in ancient times that can still play a major and active roll in the lives of the young sorcerers of today. Most of the Guardians appear in charts telling the name of the Guardian, the item it's connected to, and the family that owns the item. The Guardians are kept by the heads of each family line, often only one Guardian per family, though it is up to the whole family to ensure the Guardian does not disappear from starvation, just as it is up to the Guardian to protect everyone in the family they are bound to.

Since most Guardians have lived through several masters, they often build interrelationships among themselves with other Guardians from near-by sorcerer families. Often at large magical get togethers they can be found interacting on the sidelines with their own types, sharing family histories from the last time they met the particular Guardian that they are speaking with. A similar aspect of their duties, in the homes of their masters they are expected to work to some extent as a history teacher, re-telling the children the families greatest achievements and sharing wisdom from previous generations.

Between the actual master and Guardian, however, there is something beyond just the basic living together. To ensure the loyalty of Guardians to their masters, the master was enabled the ability to control their Guardian with spells that only the ones the Guardian is bound to can cast. But for the Guardian to always know the state of distress for their masters, and therefore protect them from danger, Guardians will create a special spiritual bond to their masters. Guardians can tell the ups and downs and all the variations of their masters moods, they can hear their master say their name, wherever the are in correspondence, and often due to the bond, a Guardian will love their master, just because it is their master.

Guardians are traditionally formed in the shape of animals. They tend to be large enough to support a master's weight in their true forms, and small enough to fit in their master's hand in their sealed forms. As such, they tend to gain some minor attention in either guise. In true forms, they are impressive, massive, strangely mythological beasts of varying colour and design. In their sealed form, they tend to be miniature, and often simpler versions of themselves. Their unusual looks and ability to speak tends to draw attention to them, so in most cases of travel, they tend to stay hidden.

As they are shaped like animals, must do whatever their master commands, and are handed down mush like heirlooms, as much as the sorcerers may love the Guardians, they are looked at as possessions rather then comrads. like a favorite toy or a beloved pet, they lack no amount of affection, but are not given equality or looked at to have any real opinion of their own. They are a fancy trinket that will give their life for their owner, they are slaves and possessions, no matter how well they are loved.

Changing Hands: Gifts and Inheritance

As started already, Guardians have in history, outlived their masters time and again. This would tend to cause a problem, if it were not for the fact that Guardians are handed down the family line. Due to the situation, seeing as the previous master must die before the next one can be claimed, it often happens that it is not the child, or even the grandchild of the previous master that receives the Guardians next, but rather a great-grandchild. Though as always there are exceptions to this, it is merely the way that history has tended to go.

But there have also been cases in history where a great sorcerer will not have children of their own. In such instances, though not as common as the previous scenario, the master will choose a favourite student to entrust the Guardians with until someone new is chosen for their master. And on rare occasions, though it is looked at by the mass of the sorcery's society as highly rude, a master who has born children may still choose to hand down their guardians to a pupil instead. This course of action tends to bare the feeling of "none of my family are important enough to me" mixed with "my family is not worthy of this honour". Such things are so generally frowned upon that the student often feels obligated to marry into the family and return the Guardians that way.

The reason in which Guardians are viewed this way comes from ancient times, during the birth of the Guardian species. In ancient times, due to the strain of magic that was required to create Guardians, it became a customary sign of debt to a fellow sorcerer's family to bestow a Guardian when a sorcerer died in the saving of another sorcerer's life. It took several centuries, but eventually every one of the old families had a Guardian of their own.

In the few thousand years that followed, the magic to make Guardians was lost, though the meaning behind them remained due to the Guardian's outstanding memories. The families grew larger, split, and grew larger once again in an endless cycle that lead to the Guardians being handed into specific families only. Also over the centuries, some of the Guardians have died from starvation or attack. By present day, not only are Guardians unable to be replenished, the families that have them are select and few. Out of all the sorcerers out there, there are only one to two hundred Guardians to go around.

Though Clow Reed created his own Guardians, they were special to his own personal needs, and are not commonly placed in the selection of the list of normal Guardians. Instead, they have been given special recognition, along with his cards and several other things, as another of his wondrous inventions and creations. Yoko and Chandra, however, were given to the Li Clan, and more specifically to Syaoran, by Clow Reed in this formal ceremony from ancient times. They are the classical variety Guardian that the rest of the world has, and therefore are as controllable and as non-taxing as your run-of-the-mill Guardian who has been around for the last several millennia.

The Special Creations

As can be expected, wherever Clow Reed's name is concerned, nothing is of the ordinary. It was during his time after he had abandoned both the Li Clan and the Reed Clan that he wondered the world, disgusted with humans, that fate aloud him to stumble upon the ancient stone ruins describing the spells required to create Guardians. So, lonely and bitter to the world around him, Clow set about making his own friends. But, never one to follow directions, and far too cocky with his own ability, Clow decided he was going to change the spell. The first few attempts were powerful, yes, but very not Guardians. Some of these spells were later adapted into what would eventually be the creation of the Clow Cards. But finally, after several years of work and study, he succeeded in the birth of his own type of Guardians.

Some of the most notable changes that he made include the fact that there were two, twins who opposed and complimented each other. Another was that instead of making them from pure magic and then bonding them to an item, he created them from an item: an old magical journal of his that no matter how much one wrote in it, it would always have more pages that were blank. Also, the fact that he created the very first humanoid Guardian, though still as sexless as any other, gave more of a look at his views towards the human population around him. But what had to be the most notable thing about his new creations, was that neither of them took on sealed forms. Indeed, the fact that he supported two unique Guardians in continual true form was what started the world's view of him becoming a god among men.

At the moment, the only thing I still have to add is that Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon were created in a sort of fused fashion between his first works and the original Guardians. They are basically his first type of Guardian with the exception of him not making them from an item, but rather in later years binding them to his Sun Staff.

**Clow Reed's Legasy**

Clow's Bloodline

Clow Reed, son of an English sorcerer and a woman from China's Li Clan. Though the greatest part of history says that Clow Reed was probably born some time during the 1600s, that is not necessarily the case, due to the fact that China is connected to Europe by a large land mass, and that there was quite probably travel along the silk road from the time that humans spread across the globe. But, for simplicity sake, I will not put any dates to his age, just that he was hundreds of years old. During his life, he quite conceivably had many wives and still many more children. Though the Li Clan boasts their blood relation to him, they most probably are not the only ones.

Ieran, last of her family line to bear the surname of 'Reed', was the product of one of these marriages that Clow had. In the case of her ancestor, he married a Chinese woman from the western coast of China. From that union, some generations later, Ieran was born. A sweet girl, timid and mild by nature, yet naturally bearing a terrifying power, she was trained hard by all of the best masters. In magic, fighting, and the arts, she became one of China's few remaining Warlords, viewed by the world as a whole to be an unstoppable force, much like Clow Reed. By the time she was fifteen, she was married off to her distant relative, the head of the Li Clan.

Though they knew nothing of each other at the time, their personalities proved compatible and they became one of those few lucky arranged marriages where the couple truly do fall in love. They had their first daughter ten months after their marriage, a second thirteen months after the first, and then a full year and a half later she gave birth to twins. Four years passed before she gave birth once more to an heir, a son that the father named Syaoran after a legend in the area. Syaoran was still very small at the time of his father's death, which left Ieran heartbroken but determined. She was a Warlord, and she would do what she must to ensure the survival of the Clan, as well as the survival of her children.

From that day, when her husband died, onward, Ieran was determined to shape her children into strong warriors. She locked up her heart, and took on an outlook of tough love, forcing all of them, Syaoran especially, to grow up much faster then they would have otherwise. Fuutie, who had been reared to be Clan heiress until her brother was born was rather more used to the treatment, but Sheifa, who had been lucky enough to avoid much of that harsher treatment, as well as just had a very motherly disposition to begin with, took it upon herself to play mother for her four siblings instead, now.

Syaoran showed potential for very powerful magic, therefore his training was intensified further in order for him to harness this ability. He was told repeatedly from several people that he was destined for greatness, that he would be the replacement for Clow Reed, to the point that he came to believe it. It was only when he came to meet Sakura that the idea that someone could be powerful outside of breeding even occurred to him, and then of course when that came to his mind, he began to doubt other things he had been taught. And worse, doubt himself.

Final Spell

Ever since the revelation of Horcruxes, all cross over writers of these two stories must ask themselves: is the spell that Clow Reed cast a Horcrux spell? Or perhaps a variation? My response for this is quite simply and completely no. The spell that Clow used was Sorcery, simple as that. He used his magic to artificially create two eleven year old boys, and then used his magic to put his soul into both. It was fundamentally a simple enough process, though it required mass amounts of magic to complete.

The true wonder, and what this section is to discuss, is what Clow chose to give each of the reincarnations and why. Lets start out with the inheritance left to Fujitaka. Made from Clow's recessive, more British genes, he bore far less appearance to Clow then the other. But in face and abilities, he was every bit like Clow. He was not given magic, but was that because Clow could not split the magic, or because he wouldn't? Kero said that he was awoken when someone with magic touched the Clow Book. Clow intended for Fujitaka to grow up and have Sakura who would become the new mistress of the Clow Cards. If Clow had given him magic, he would have stopped aging like Eriol had and even if he didn't, he would have had magic and that would have awoken Yue and Cerberus at once. They would have seen the Clow Reed in Fujitaka and pronounced him the new Master, and nothing would have changed.

Clow also did not give Fujitaka any memory of being Clow. Why? I think it was because he didn't want to make Fujitaka suffer. He wanted Fujitaka to be the man he never could. To live the life of a normal person like he had always wanted to. He never fit in as a youth because of his family, he became even more ostracised by his outstanding powers. He became bitter, selfish, and at times childish. And then something happened to make him see that his way of living was wrong. And so he made Fujitaka everything that he wasn't: a person with no history who had no magic, and more compassion then most could ever feel.

What did Fujitaka choose for himself? He became fascinated with history, wanting to know the past and origins of things. Was this due to some sort of latent or erased memory of Clow's life living in those times? Was this because he had never known who he was or where he came from? Who can say? It was most likely a mixture of things that compiled to lead to his life decisions.

As for Eriol, he was given Clow's looks, his power, his mind. But was that his gift? Or maybe was he made as a side effect, somewhere to put everything because they couldn't be given to Fujitaka? Eriol proved to be the one doomed to make sure that all of Clow's plans turned out. Stuck for years as a child, alone in the world, just waiting for his other half to have the wonder family and gain the beloved Guardians and Cards. It's not surprising that Clow made it so that Fujitaka was immune to Eriol's magic in order to stop his murder in a childish fit of jealousy!

Knowing what sort of freak he was, not born from a woman's womb, but rather from the spell of a man who thought he had the right to twist the forces of nature and fate to his own liking. Not even able to get close to other people now that he lives, because his lack of change would be too much a give away to be able to know them for more then a year or so. He created his own Guardians, like Clow Reed before him, his own replacements to be his own family. His biggest wish, above all other things, was to not be the strongest or the best anymore. He didn't want to be one of a kind, he wanted to be as normal as he could manage.

Sakura's Original Magic

In the later chapters of the manga, while Sakura was changing the Clow Cards into Sakura Cards, the things everyone was saying about it brought up a lot of questioning in my mind. First, I will sate what I understood from the first. That while the Clow Cards were such, they drew their magic from Clow and so he could halt or even redirect them as he pleased. So to make the magic work, Sakura had to take the cards from Clow and make them into something beyond his control. That now that they had a new Mistress, like Yue the cards were draining the reserve magic and were starting to die.

Well, then why would people call it Sakura's own special magic? The cards appearance hardly changes, and their abilities are copied perfectly, it's not even like they gained any new personality traits or anything. They are, for all tense and purposes, Clow's cards still, only drawing magic from Sakura instead. But during one of my bouts of deep thinking, it dawned on me that I was making a fundamental and, I'll admit, detrimental error in my pondering. I was forgetting that natural talent and mass power do not equal knowledge. To assume that anyone, especially a small child, could proficiently create anything without prior learning or instructence would be quite foolish, indeed.

Sakura, impressive heroine that she is, had no prior knowledge to anything involving magic before her tenth birthday. She didn't even know about the five Eastern Elements, as stated by her when she captured Earthy. Her only experience with how to work magic was through the Clow Cards, and with only Cerberus and Syaoran to be her teachers, neither showed much actual promptness to teach beyond what the situation at hand required. So in a lot of ways, she was wandering blind, figuring pretty well everything out for herself as she went along.

Is everyone following so far? So here's how it worked out: Sakura, filled with vast amounts of magic, but fearing it's existence within herself, comes across the Clow Book, and becomes the Card Captor. She learns all about her cards as she catches them, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personalities, everything. Each card, to her, is read with greater ease then a story book, and each card, to her, is a dear and important friend. Then, once she has all the cards, danger comes about and she must strengthen her bond to the cards and make them her own. The urgency of the danger makes it less dangerous for her, as it gives an actual need and requirement to boost the power of the card. Not knowing anything other then the cards, she leaves them as is and just feeds them her own magic instead. This also makes the transition easier, because it's not creating something new, it's only updating something old.

This, as it stands, leads to the next step, shown in the last episode of the anime and the idea of which is being used as a fundamental point in my story. Now that she knows how to create the cards, she knows everything about them, the only logical next step is to move away from the original blueprints designed by Clow Reed and go on to draw up a few of her own. Namely, The Love, and in a way, The Hope.

**Time line**

Just to clear things up, some important events and their corresponding dates.

April, 1994: Sakura turns ten, also at some point within the first week Sakura goes into her father's study and finds the Clow Book. Windy is found within the next day or two and returns to the book of it's own accord. Thus begins Sakura's adventures as a Card Captor.

July, 1994: Li Syaoran comes to Japan to find the Clow Cards (admittably this did not happen until December in the manga, but I need to scrunch the time line a bit). At this point Sakura is in possession of Windy, Wood, Jump, Fly, Watery, Illusion, and Flower.

September 1, 1994: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and company enter their fourth year at Hogwarts.

Late Fall, 1994: Sakura captures the last card and goes through Yue's judgement (note that in the manga this would have most likely happened in winter of '95, but as said before I am trimming this down a bit)

Start of Third Trimester, 1995: Eriol joins Sakura's class (for those of you who don't know, school starts in Japan in spring, summer break signals the end of the first trimester, winter break signals the end of the second, and then spring break signals the end of the year. So this is somewhere around January, but I don't know the schooling system clearly enough to state for sure what the date would be. Also, the fact that they are in short-sleeved uniforms when Eriol arrives in the manga, means that it's probably the start of the second trimester of 96, but... that would have Sakura already 12 at this point and Hogwarts brings students in when they're 11.)

April 1, 1995: Sakura turns 11. Also right in this area, they move from the fourth grade into the fifth.

June, 1995: Sakura transforms the Light and Dark, she splits Eriol's magic between himself and her father, allowing Eriol to age once more, and Eriol goes back to England with Kaho. Syaoran, who is in love with Sakura, decides to keep his feelings to himself because of his Mother's calling him to return to Hong Kong. Sakura is highly upset by this news and in a fit of emotion, creates an original card: The Love. Realising her feelings, she makes Syaoran a bear, but is late getting to the bus stop and barely hands the bear over to Syaoran. (Being that in the manga, they went from short sleeves to long sleeves to winter coats, to short sleeves, and then finally are wearing long sleeves again at this point, she probably was having her final battle against Eriol in the mid to late fall, maybe even early winter, of 97 at this point, so that means she'd be 13... I don't think Clamp MEANT for her to be 13 at this point, I think they wanted her to be 11-12ish, so I'm sticking with her being 11.)

Late June, 1995: Harry and company end their fourth year at Hogwarts with the death of Cedric Diggory and the revival of Lord Voldemort.

Late July, 1995: Eriol contacts Sakura about one last card that Clow had made as a seal for the others to keep them calm after his death. He tells her he's been haunted by visions lately, and fears it might become active now that it's not sealing anything and she must go and locate this 20th card. She asks him for advice on how to beat it, and he tells her that it's looking for her strongest feeling, and that it will take that feeling as payment for capturing it. Sakura is upset by this, but when the Void takes even Yue and Cerberus from her, she is willing to do what she must to protect everyone else. What it takes from her is her new card, and fuses with it to form The Hope. (This event has a very important part to my story, but I won't give it away quite yet...)

August 14th, 1995: Sakura and Syaoran receive letters via owl requesting their attendance at Hogwarts.

So, Sakura's story with the cards takes place over 14 months, rather then the 3 ½ years from the manga, but it is essentially the same story, with all the same events, in pretty much the same order. The only main difference for the most of it is what uniform and clothes the kids are running around in. Some things like the white day chapter would just be bumped over to the proper date for White Day. Same with Valentine Day, and other such special holidays. But seeing as for the most part things like that aren't really set in stone in the manga, indeed few of them are even a part of the story line beyond just passing comment, I feel safe in compressing the events to make them able to fit.

One last side note before I send this off to whomever may read it, all subject matter is open for discussions and debate. Indeed, I enjoy hearing what people's own personal opinions are, and anything that can improve the quality of my writing is always most welcome.


	2. Prelued

Harry Potter and the Deck Master

Based off of the Manga version of events, so there are less cards and Meilin doesn't exist (not that I don't like her, but she would complicate matters too much being a "squib" and all.) x-over w/ book 5 (because I REALLY want to see Umbridge try and play her games on Syaoran and Eriol!!) Though the whole CCS story took place in one year and Syaoran and Sakura never told each other that they loved them, it was just sort of implied and accepted by both. Also, a very twisted version of the second movie took place, resulting in the making of The Hope, but little else has happened. It ended without Sakura getting up the guts to tell Syaoran how she felt, because she was too scared that the emotion had been removed from him. There will be no "saving Harry Potter" in this story, the kids are there for their own purposes, and Voldemort doesn't have the slightest idea about what the Clow Cards are, so any help from either side is just plane coincidence.

"English"

"_Japanese_"

"**Chinese**"

_Thought_

//Long distance communication (telephone, etc.)//

* * *

Prelude: A glance at another type of life

Eriol absently stroked Kaho's thigh as they sat up together and watched the late night movie. Nakuru and Spinel had already been sent to bed, as they were young and needed their rest, but the two reincarnations wanted to take this chance to be alone together. They hardly got the chance to, being that according to law their relationship would be worthy of Kaho's life imprisonment, but love fought above appearance of age.

You see, even though Eriol was only an eleven year old boy, Clow Reed, who's soul the boy possessed half of, was rather elderly. In fact, if one were to truly look at it, as in life experience for life experience, Kaho was by far the younger of the two. But, the authorities would not look at it like that. So, when this woman in her mid twenties leaned down and kissed the eleven year old boy passionately, the authorities would have simply noted her as a pedophile, and not as two soulmates being simply in love.

But something tinged at the corner of Eriol's mind. Something that could not be ignored, no mater how much he wished to just leave his descendents alone. He broke the kiss and looked at the beautiful woman before him. "Kaho… I have a job for you."

* * *

Li Ieran stood over the sarcophagus that she had been sent. What had her young son been up to that had lead to him getting such a present? And from her many-times-great grandfather, Clow Reed? Yes, she was the last of a long line of descendents to bear his name, but had lost it when she married the head of the Clan, in hopes of producing a Card Captor.

And yet, although all five of her children were exceptional, not even her powerful young son could succeed in bringing back the Clow Cards. "Ma?" speaking of which…

"**Yes, Xiao-lang?**" Ieran asked, without even turning around.

Syaoran came around into her line of sight, now that he had been acknowledged, and bowed low at the waist as he presented her with an envelope addressed to him in curly green English writing. "**I… I want to go, mother, to prove myself, somehow. I have lost face, and… something else while I was in Japan looking for the Cards. I wish to retrieve some of it back by following in Clow Reed's footsteps and learning both styles of magic. Who knows, I may even be able to one day make my own set of Cards, much like the Card's new Mistress changed the ones she had to fit her power…**"

"**Are you sure about this, Xiao-lang? You know your coronation would be taking place in the middle of their school year.**"

"**Yes, mother.**" he reassured, before adding in a whisper, "**I don't know what's wrong with me, mother, but I'm just not happy here anymore…**"

"**Very well, pack your bags; someone shall take you to get your things in the morning. You can stay there if you like, or come back here afterwards.**" Ieran snapped authoritatively.

It was only after her son bowed and hurried out of the room that she let her head bow and shoulders slump. _What could you have been up to indeed…?_

* * *

Sakura, Tomoyo, and Kero lay sprawled on the living room floor of the Kinomoto household. They were made to lie on the floor because Touya and Yukito were snuggled on the couch. The five of them were going over Sakura's old tapes, looking for possible weak-spots or predictable patterns that she may be using to help her in her training. Their dad, Fujitaka, was in the other room making popcorn for his two children and their guests.

"_Oh, oh, oh! Rewind that, will you, Tomoyo?_" Touya suddenly asked.

"_Huh? Uh, Ok…_" Tomoyo said, hitting the stop, rewind, and play.

As the scene, they were watching—the school sports day when she caught The Flower—came close to where it was before it was stopped, Yukito looked at his lover questioningly. "_Was there something in her form you wanted to point out?_" asked the ever sweet grey haired man. (A/N: I know that Yukito doesn't really have a gender, but "it" sounds too insulting…)

"_No,_" Touya responded in an almost bored voice, but the mirth was still evident as an undertone, "_I just wanted to see the monster drop the baton on her head again…_"

Sakura instantly sat up from where she had been using the winged lion as a beanbag and turned to her brother with puffed up reddened cheeks. "_I'm NOT a monster!!"_ she cried, slapping her palms on the floor in frustration. "_Yuki! Make him be nice!!_"

Yukito seemed torn for a moment between the one he loved and the one he served. Finally, he bowed his head to the Card Mistress, and turned to Touya. "_Either you be nice, or I'm going to have to remove you from the room for a little time out._"

"_Is that a promise?_" Touya teased, running his fingers through Yukito's hair.

Before Yukito could reply, Sakura turned and said, "_Could you two take it into the other room or something? I'm trying to study this!_"

Yukito and Touya got up to move to Touya's room, and instantly Sakura and Tomoyo kidnapped the couch so have something other then Cerberus to lay on. But just as they plopped down, the phone rang and Touya lifted it to his hear. "Moshi-moshi?" he asked into the receiver.

//_Uh, hi… is Kinomoto Sakura there?_// asked a male voice on the other end.

"_Who are you, and why do you want to talk to her?_" Touya asked immediately.

"_Who is it, Onii-chan?_" Sakura asked her over-protective brother. His only reply was to wave her away.

//_Look, I don't have time for this, could you just put her on, or tell me she's not there, or that I have a wrong number or something?_// the voice on the other end was tired and laden with a thick Chinese accent that spoke with rude words.

This fact made Touya's brow contract. "_Oi, Gaki, is that you?_" complained Touya. "_How many times have I told you to keep away from my sister!?_"

"_Syaoran?? Ne, Onii-chan! Give it here!!"_ Sakura cried, suddenly at her brother's side, hopping around to try and get a hold of the receiver. "_Yuki!! Help me!_" She whined, and dutifully her Moon Guardian complied and snatched the receiver from her brother's hands and handed it over to his young Mistress.

At Touya's huff, Yukito shrugged and said, "_I don't have a choice, I have to obey my Mistress…_"

Sakura ignored them completely, and brought the phone to her ear at once. "Moshi-moshi? Syaoran?"

//_Sakura-chan? Is that you?_//

"_Syaoran! Oh, I'm so happy! I've missed you so much! Please tell me you're coming back to visit soon. It's just not the same without having you here with me…_"

There was a pause, and when Syaoran spoke again, his voice was strained. //_Yeah… I've… missed you all, too… but, uh, no… I'm not coming back… in fact, I'm calling because I have some bad news…_//

"_Syaoran…? Wh-what is it? Are you in trouble? Do you need help? Is there anything I can do??_" she was starting to panic, she didn't like the tone of his voice, and she didn't like the way he was talking. It made her uneasy.

He was quiet for a very long time, but finally he said //_Sakura…_// he started but then stopped and was quiet again for a good few minutes. //_Kinomoto-san, I called to tell you… that I won't be coming to visit any more…_//

She felt like the ground had suddenly disappeared from under her feet. _He-he had to be joking… right??_ "_Syaoran…_"

//_Please, Sakura! Just-just listen, ok…? I'm… I'm going to be going away for a very long time… for years… I won't be able to come and see you…_//

It hurt to hear… but she wouldn't cry over the phone, she wouldn't lay that guilt on him. "_Well, that's ok, I guess. I mean, we still have e-e-mail and--_"

//_No Saku-Kinomoto-san, I'm not going to be around any computers or--_//

"_Well, there's the telephone!_" she interrupted hurriedly, not wanting to hear what he had to say next. "_Or-or letters!! We can keep in touch!"_

//_No, Kinomoto-san, we cant…I'm… not going to be able… to talk to you any more… just… just forget about me, ok?_//

"Syaoran… iie…" she whispered into the receiver.

//_I'm going to forget about you and it's best that you do the same with me… I'll be gone too long for you to hold on… just… goodbye, Sakura… I-I-I-I… oh forget it!_// and with that the line clicked off.

Sakura stood unmoving, just holding onto the receiver with her eyes blanked out, for a long time after he hung up. She just couldn't grasp it… _Syaoran… gone…? All my dreams of true love… gone…? Everything we went through… everything that we were to each other?? Does none of it really matter to him??_ at the first of the beeping that the line made, Sakura threw the phone down and ran to her room to escape the eyes of her brother, friend, and guardians.

Almost as soon as the door slammed above them, Fujitaka came out with the bowl of popcorn and a letter. Glancing around he asked, "_Where is Sakura-san?_"

"_She went upstairs. She seemed rather upset. Why do you want her?_" Touya replied.

"_Well, it's just that I got this letter to a boarding school in the strangest of ways… from the beak of an owl… and it wants her to attend a wizarding school named Hogwarts…_"

* * *

Well, there you have it, folks! The prelude, in all it's twisted glory. This story will be written through both the eyes of the HP characters and the CCS characters. Sometimes chapters may even be written semi-twice if both groups are doing different things in different areas… If so, Harry Potter's group will always be marked as: Chapter #A: Chapter Name, and the Card Captors and Guardian's adventures will be written in Chapter #B: Chapter Name (usually the same name as A, but not always…). Also, this story goes by the idea of the snowball effect, so even if it does start off nearly identical to the book in events, it will change more and more as I write… Well, that's all I can really think of for now, so Shade and Sweet Water Everyone!! Yours faithfully, The Key of the Game! 


	3. Dumbledore's Mission

"English"

"_Japanese_"

"**Chinese**"

'Thought'

/Long distance communication (telephone, etc.)/

_Written word_

A/N: this chapter runs parallel to the prelude.

* * *

Chapter 1: Dumbledore's Mission 

It was Saturday, August 12, 1995, and Harry Potter was at his Court Hearing.

Sirius passed impatiently around the room. He hated to admit it, but part of him wanted Harry to be tried guilty so that they could stay together here. Lupin had been trying for most the morning to calm his irritable friend with little success, so when someone knocked on the door, he was relieved to have a momentary distraction.

That was, until he opened the door.

On the other side stood a woman. And not just any woman, but a beautiful woman. A woman that he had never laid eyes on before. A woman standing at the doorway to the Order of the Phoenix… a place that no one but members were supposed to be able to see. Apart from her technically not being rightfully there, she was very attractive, in her mid-twenties with long red-brown hair and brown eyes… wait, not brown, though at first one might think so, but they were really a strange greeny hazel…

Soft pink lips smiled over an eggshell face, and the oriental woman then spoke. "I have a letter here for Mr. Dumbledore, I would have sent it normally, but I do not have any owls. Please, could you give it to him?" and with that, she handed over a manila envelope and wondered back down the stairs.

Still not fully functioning at his total capacity after experiencing such a strange event, Lupin turned and wondered back down to the kitchen where Sirius awaited curiously. "Who was that at the door?"

"I donno..." Lupin replied truthfully.

"No, seriously, who was at the door?"

"I have no clue… some strange lady; I don't have the slightest idea who she was, though. She just gave me this letter to give to Dumbledore and walked away…"

Sirius stared unbelieving at his best friend. "How did she see the door?" to which Lupin could only shrug.

"Oh, f#$..." Sirius grumbled. "NOW what's going on?" he collapsed to the table with a huff.

"I'll go contact everyone… something like this should be dealt with immediately…" Lupin said, turning to go.

"Something like what?" came Fred's voice soon followed by the man himself.

"Nothing, Fred, go back up stairs." Lupin said in a warning tone.

"But I'm hungry!" he wined, slipping easily around the thin man and over towards the pantry.

He was caught by the scruff of the neck by Sirius, who glared at the younger man. "I'll bring you up something, then. But we're in the middle of business. Get out."

"What sort of business?" pushed Fred.

"OUT!" Sirius finally barked at the teen, half chasing the young man out of the room. He then turned back to Lupin and chuckled. "Kids…"

"They remind me of you at that age…" Lupin commented, before going out of the room to call the others.

* * *

One could pretty safely say, that that house had never been in more of an uproar then what this one letter had produced. After the initial complaints about the meeting being called in the middle of the day, when many had been at work or doing other things besides work for the Order, and had had quite a lot of trouble finding excuses to sneak away and come here. And after Sirius and Snape had had their little bickering match over whether or not Sirius was doing anything at all for the Order. And after all the greetings between members that had not seen each other in months or even years, they finally managed to get everyone calmed down enough to get out the story of what happened without major interruptions. 

On the other hand, once the story had been told, things only got steadily worse. Now, there were twenty-some adults sitting in the room, arguing over whether or not they should open Dumbledore's mail… At the moment, fathomless grey eyes were focusing on the letter, listening to the argument at hand.

"I say we should leave it, it has a dark magic to it!" Moody's voice growled from somewhere behind Sirius' head.

"Why do you say that? What's it got on it?" Tonks challenged from somewhere to the left.

"No clue! It's obviously evil! We should destroy it!" Hollered the disfigured man.

"Oh, just cause you can't see it, makes it evil?" sneered Tonks, though she was drowned out by another voice on the other side of the table.

"We can't do that! It's Dumbledore's!" Molly shrieked.

Finally growing tired of the bickering, Sirius leaned forward and grabbed the letter, "Well, I for one want to know who wrote this so I know who knows where I live!" choosing to ignore Snape's sneer about hiding, Sirius placed a nail under the wax seal.

* * *

Silently the Weasley children sat at the top of the stairs, never had they seen so many members of the Order all in one place. 

"What do you think's going on…?" Ginny asked, staring at the door.

"I don't know… they had a letter when I was down there, but they kicked me out before I could hear or see anything…" Fred replied to his little sister.

"Maybe… maybe something really bad has happened…" Ron said, putting his face in his hands.

"You think?" George asked in a 'no duh' sort of tone.

"Well, I mean… what if someone was killed or something?" Ron asked worriedly.

Silence fell around the group. Ginny laid her head on George's knee for a moment before saying, "Maybe we've got it wrong… maybe something good has happened! Maybe they've got a lead or-or they could have found a way to stop You-Know-Who from getting to the weapon…" Ginny asked, getting more hopeful by the word.

"Or maybe Harry's lost the court case and they've all gathered around here to decide what to do about it…" Hermione supplied, coming up and joining the group of redheads.

"Hermione! How could you say something like that?" Ron asked, appalled.

"Well, it's a possibility, and we should keep our minds open to it. You have to have noticed how the Ministry is trying discredit Harry in every way that they--" she was cut off by a loud boom from in the kitchen. At once, the whole group of children were on their feet, hurrying to the kitchen door to check on what was wrong.

Ginny was the first there, she pushed her way through the (blank) charm and grabbed the handle, shaking it wildly. Finally the pressure of the spell became too much and she was shot back into Ron and George, all of whom toppled to the ground in a heap of limbs.

* * *

"Sirius!" Lupin cried, hurrying over to his dear friend's side, where he lay smouldering on the other end of the room. 

"Whoa!" cried Tonks, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Wh-what cough! happened?" Sirius asked, grabbing Lupin's shoulder for support as he pulled himself to his feet.

"It looked like you were electrified…" admitted Snape with a snide grin at his long-time rival.

But the mood between the two was lessoned at the sound of Tonks' giggle. "Hehehe… come check this out! I think the letter's insulting you!"

"What…?" Sirius replied in a disbelieving tone. The members of the Order all gathered around to see a message written on the back of the letter in a shimmering red ink.

_You shouldn't read other peoples mail, you know, it's rude…_

After a moment, the words faded away to nothingness. The baffled members of the Order looked among themselves for a second. "What now?" someone finally asked.

"Maybe a spell could get it open…?" Mundungus suggested.

"Moody, do you know any that might work?" Molly asked him. Moody nodded and pulled out his wand, tapping the letter and mumbling something. He put his wand back in his pocket, and when it became apparent that he wasn't going to open the letter, Mundungus shook his head and reached forward to pull it open.

At once, fire jumped to his arm, burning its way up to his shoulder with a loud 'whoosh'. One of the witches screamed, there was a large panic, and the fire was put out, leaving only minor burns on Mundungus's arm. "What the hell? What'd you do to it!" the still smoking man cried in an outrage.

"I didn't do anything. It wouldn't let me cast the spell." Moody admitted. The reply he got was a number of different ones:

Mundungus glared, "You could have told someone!"

Tonks looked horrified, "Didn't let you!"

Sirius looked highly concerned, "What could that mean?"

Lupin stared slack jawed, "That shouldn't be possible…"

Snape looked mildly disturbed, "Preposterous."

Molly, became highly distracted at that moment because there was another knock at the door, "Oh, what now?"

A number of other people just stared in a shocked silence before a large group hurried up the stairs to quiet down the paintings and make sure that there wasn't an attack on the other side of the door. On their way up, the kids were shunted up the stairs, ignoring the questions of what was going on, and a large group approached the door with wands at the ready.

"Oh! Oh my!" cried Arthur as he held up his hands, staring down his wife's wand. "Am I in trouble for something? I didn't forget the milk, did I?"

Molly rolled her eyes at her husband's sense of humour. "Really, Arthur…"

"There's trouble, we thought you may have been someone else…" Tonks said.

Sirius pushed through the throng of OotP members and pulled Harry into a hug. "Thank god you're alright. I was so worried that something may have happened to you." He mumbled through his godson's hair.

"Who do you think I was?" Arthur asked the at-the-moment-blond.

"That's the problem, we don't know." Replied Tonks, getting a startled look from Arthur.

Lupin placed a hand on both Sirius and Harry's shoulders while he spoke to Arthur, "There's an emergency going on, have you seen Dumbledore?"

"Well, he was at the hearing, and helped Harry get off, but he left apart from us, so…" Arthur spoke as the whole lot hurried back down into the kitchen, leaving Harry and the other kids who were aloud to hurry down now that hey knew who was on the other side of the door to lock up.

"What's going on?" Harry asked as his friends gathered around him and the adults left.

"Donno mate… there was a knock on the door, then when Fred tried to slip down and see who was there, Sirius and Lupin were arguing about some letter or whatnot…" Ron started.

"Yeah, and then all these Order members showed up and hurried off down stairs not looking too happy!" Ginny interrupted.

"They said something about expecting someone else to be at the door, but not knowing who. What could be going on?" Harry informed the others.

"Who knows…" Hermione sighed.

"Looks like we got another mystery this year, eh mate?" Ron asked.

"What else is new…" Harry replied with a roll of his eyes.

* * *

"So… have you opened it yet?" Arthur asked as he eyed the letter, after having the situation explained to him. 

"No…" admitted a female voice from somewhere behind all the other bodies.

"Well, the thing is…" Molly started, but was cut off by Arthur reaching forward and hooking a nail under the tab.

The sensation that he felt was unlike that of any other he had experienced. A sort of drowning almost, and great waves of confusion, where vision was hindered nearly useless and up and down were flipped. Voices rang in his ear but he couldn't quite hear them, though finally the dizzy disorientation was starting to fade.

Fade to find Arthur Weasley sitting a good ten feet from where he was seconds before… sitting in Professor Severus Snape's lap…

Snape was leaning back trying to distance himself from the elder Weasley who had just apperated into his lap. He looked at the red-head with all the offence that he felt at such a breach of his personal space. The older man grinned a stupid apologetic smile to which Snape just curled his lip in distaste. Once the appropriate distance was achieved, Snape shifted in his chair and straitened his robes to achieve what little he could of his remaining dignity.

Tonks looked with wide eyes and a fighting smile just SCREAMING how much she wanted to laugh. "See, that's the problem, it seems to do something different to each person who tries to open it…"

* * *

It was half past ten at night before Mrs. Weasley finally brought dinner up to the hungry children, and to all there curiosity they got no answers from the obviously nervous mother. She just sat down the plate of sandwiches and hurried back down the stairs, dodging the twin's questions with relative ease. Little did they know that, for once, she was just as much in the dark as they were. For since that morning, in over twelve hours, they hadn't figured out anything about the content of that letter. 

They had given up trying to get into it some time ago, and most members of the Order had long since left, saying to contact them when they get the letter open. And though the hour grew ever later, Dumbledore was still no where to be found. Upon re-entering the kitchen, Molly found Lupin and Sirius glaring down the letter while Tonks attempted to take a nap, using her cousin's lap as a pillow. Arthur had already fallen asleep in his chair and was even drooling slightly as his glasses barely hung to his nose.

They had all been draining both their minds and their magic for over twelve hours in an attempt to figure out how to get into this letter. Lupin rubbed his temples tiredly and asked. "So, so far, what have we figured out?"

"That nothing works!" growled Tonks, sounding almost as dog-like as her cousin.

Sirius smiled down at the frankness of the girl. She would have fit in so well with them, had she only been a little older… "We know that any spell that we try has no effect, and all the times we attempt to open it, we have a spell cast on us in no predictable order…"

Tonks, realising that they weren't going to stop working for anything, decided that she would keep working too. She pushed herself up from her cousin's lap and added her two cents worth to the conversation. "And that means we can't prepare for them, because casting an anti-freeze and an anti-flame charm on the same thing cancels them both out, and there's no such THING as an anti-lightning or anti-teleport charm…"

"Yeeeess… who ever made this spell on this letter is either a certified genius or a complete lunatic…" Lupin said, shaking a hand through his lengthening hair, wondering mildly if he should cut it or let it continue to grow out.

"And that annoying message that keeps showing up… what was it again…?" Sirius asked, digging the heals of his palms into his eyes.

"I can't believe you've forgot. We have been staring at it all day…! 'You shouldn't read other people's mail, it's rude'!" Tonks said with a roll of her momentarily brown eyes.

"You forgot the 'you know'." The canine-man replied tiredly. Tonks playfully stuck her tongue out at him in reply.

"Maybe… maybe it's some sort of riddle…" Tonks pondered, letting her chin rest on the table and looking down her nose at the offending parchment.

"Maybe it's just telling us to mind our own business and not read other people's mail…" Molly said testily as she cleaned the plates that had the sandwiches for the children on them. Lupin just rolled his eyes, Molly had been like this all evening, and he had a headache…

"Maybe if we ask it nicely, not be 'rude', you know?" Tonks offered.

"If one more person says 'you know'… I'll bite them… I really will…" growled Lupin testily.

Tonks just winked at him in a teasing manner. "Where's Dung?" she asked the room in general.

"I think he wandered off with some of the family silver…" supplied Sirius carelessly, drawing circles on the table with the back of his fork. "Why?"

"What, do you think I was going to try it…?" Tonks asked disbelievingly.

Sirius shrugged, "How would you talk him into it?"

The younger cousin winked at the older one, "I am an Auror, after all, and he is a criminal…"

Sirius just smiled. Yep, she would have fit in very well…

Tonks suddenly got rather nervous and began changing her appearance out of natural discomfort. When the two older men looked at her questioningly, she replied with "What are we going to tell Dumbledore…?"

"What do you mean…?" questioned Sirius.

"Are we really going to tell him that we were going through his mail…?" Tonks asked, looking around as if she expected him to jump out of a corner and accuse them or something.

The two ex-Gryffindors looked at each other. "Well… it's not like we actually did get into it…" Lupin started nervously…

Tonks turned her attentions at once onto her cousin. "You were to first one to try and open it, you take the blame!"

"Me? No way!"

"It's not like he can kick you out, it's your house and you're a wanted man!"

"That means I won't be able to get—umpf!"

Lupin had finally just stood and put a hand over each of the cousin's mouths. "Can I just finish my sentence…?" he said looking from one to the other. "Being that we haven't succeeded in opening it, then let's just keep it quiet that we tried, okay…?"

Molly turned on them at once. "No! No, no, no! Not a chance! What if it hurts Dumbledore too!"

"You're the one that kept yelling at us to leave it be…" Sirius complained. "I think Remus has a good idea, it's not like we know what's in it, or anything."

"Yes! Very smart of you! You should have been Ravenclaw!" cheered Tonks, happy that she wouldn't have to deal with a plausibly angry Dumbledore.

She soon got up to help Molly with the cleaning, even though she was more of a hindrance then a help, but Lupin took the full advantage of her stepping away. "I know that look… you're trying to place that little girl you had to pry off to so you could come to meetings in the young woman that's working so hard to help run this place…"

"Thirteen years… really has changed her. Yet, even back then we knew that if the Order was still around when she got older, she'd be in it…"

Lupin chucked softly to himself, "And we're still having to pry her off of her favourite cousin…"

Sirius hit Lupin playfully in the arm "Shut up…"

* * *

Eleven o'clock came and went to find Tonks attempting to nap on Sirius's lap again while he read from an old book they had tucked away in the library and Lupin nursing a goblet of butterbeer. The book wasn't too interesting, just an old journal kept by one of the Black ancestors, but it was something to do… at half passed, Sirius closed the book, handed it to Lupin, who went and got another. Midnight, Tonks had finally fallen asleep in a position only she could manage to be comfortable in. A few dirty goblets littered the large cedar table, Arthur had finally been awoken by Molly, and the two had retired to bed. Sirius still read aloud, though quieter then before so not to disturb his little cousin, and Lupin was beginning to be lulled slightly by the calm and even voice of his childhood friend. 

It was a quarter after midnight when the kitchen door opened. Sirius looked around; pausing in his reading and Lupin stood to greet the long awaited Dumbledore. At the shifting of Sirius's body, Tonks stirred awake. While Lupin grabbed up the letter and hurried towards Dumbledore with it, Sirius helped the young woman into a full sitting position. She covered her mouth as she yawned and then rubbed her eye with the heal of her palm.

"Mnn? Wha-time is it?" she slurred in her sleepy state.

"Quarter after midnight." Sirius informed her.

"Oh… good morning, then."

"Morning…" he replied with minor amusement.

Meanwhile, Lupin was talking with Dumbledore. "Finally you got here! The whole place has been in an uproar for the whole day! This letter arrived--"

"Ah, yes, I was wondering when he would write again…" Dumbledore said, opening the letter without the slightest problem.

"—A woman brought it to the door!" Lupin stressed.

"A red head? Medium height, oriental, rather attractive…?"

"You… know her?" Lupin, Sirius, and Tonks asked in unison.

"Oh, no, it says here that she's Mr. Reed's assistant, and not to be alarmed if she should deliver the letter herself, apparently she has trouble dealing with owls…"

The three looked at each other, and then back at the old Headmaster in front of them. "Um… Dumbledore…?" Sirius finally chose to venture. "Who is the letter from?"

"A very old correspondent of mine who's judgement I hold very highly. Mr. Reed is a brilliant man, who even discovered a way to charm letters so that only the one it's written to can open it. It's a very good thing that you left it alone, otherwise who knows what may have happened…"

Tonks grasped her mouth with both hands to try and choke down the giggles, Dumbledore looked at her with raised eyebrows over the top of his half-moon glasses. "Mr. Weasley got teleported into Snape's LAP!" she squealed with mirth.

Dumbledore looked at Lupin and Sirius. They were about to go into a big long explanation about how they didn't know that it was a friend of Dumbledore's and that it could have been a threat or something along that lines that couldn't wait until he got in over twelve ours later, when Dumbledore smiled and announced "Really? I think I may have enjoyed seeing that…" and went back to reading.

Seeing as they had managed to avoid Dumbledore's anger so far, they decided to push their luck as he sat and "humm"ed and "uhumm"ed his way through the last of the letter. But seeing as the readers have nothing to fear from a character in a story, the letter:

_Dear Albus,_

_I'm sorry for not writing to you in the last while, and please, do not be alarmed if this letter is not delivered by an owl, my assistant (a medium sized woman with long red-brown hair of oriental descent) tends to have problems with them. She has my full trust though, so whatever you may be up to, it's safe with her. I heard that you have been having quite the problems with convincing people that this era's Lord of Darkness is indeed returned, but do not loose hope, before this time next year, the world will know and you will have all the support from the Ministry that you need._

_I dare say, even, that you may win this time. Though casualties are expected, as always in war, but you have your enemy's weapon in your hand and can afford a moment to laugh right now, for I fear that a moment is all that you may have left. _

_Yes, I suppose you knew when you received this letter from your companions that it would not bare purely good tidings. Unfortunately, those with power draw too much trouble to themselves to stay out of it for long. That is why I write to you, two young children I know of need to learn to control their chaotic powers. I know that foreign students are not usually permitted in Hogwarts, but it is European magic they need, and I know you well enough to know that you can provide them with all the help you are able to._

_I am sorry to say that if they do not learn soon, then a great disaster will fall upon this world, worse then even what your Lord of Darkness could bestow. It is worth bending the rules for in this one instance, it is one of the most important things I will ever ask you to do. I will keep in touch with both you and them, and the best of luck to you. Their mailing information is written on the back. _

_Take care,_

_Clow Reed_

Albus Dumbledore looked at the letter a second time through, knowing that often essential keys to the future could be found in the writings of his long-time friend. The man's perception and foresight was breathtaking. And yet, a 'great disaster' could mean any number of things. How could one prepare for something so vague?

Finally, with a last shake of his head he stood up. "Forgive me, Sirius, but I will be in need of your study. I must write a message at once." And with that he walked out of the room.

* * *

Wow! I can't believe I actually got this done so fast! Anyone who looks at any of my other stories knows that I have a bad habit of not updating very fast. But if you'd like more, then review and you'll get more! You can kinda tell that WolfStar helped me out with the wording on parts of this, but the plot's all mine still... These next two chapters probably wont have much of the Harry Potter cast in it (That's why I tried so hard to give you a good look into the adults who wont show up much through the year!) This will be slow, because I don't own OotP, and the library has them all rented out, as for HBP, I'm going to be reading it soon, so hold your breaths and prepare (hopefully) for a writing streak in my other PURE Harry Potter story (which I'm contemplating changing the name on…) So, anyways, see you all with the CCS crew in the next chapter: What Road is Mine 

Shade and Sweet Water!


	4. What Road is Mine

"English"

"_Japanese_"

"**Chinese**"

'Thought'

/Long distance communication (telephone, etc.)/

_Written word_

Chapter 2: What Road is Mine

Owls… such a small bird could not carry something so cumbersome as a letter, half way around the world. And yet, as anyone in the wizarding world would tell you, there are wizards all over the world. To many, they never think about the process that their letters take to get from one country to another, many don't even know anyone from farther away then an owl can fly, so they wouldn't care. But for those that do, and for those that wonder, let us take a minor detour and see what actually goes on in long distance correspondence.

It all starts out, naturally, with a letter. Let's visit the writer of one now, a Professor Dumbledore who writes to possible candidates for students over seas. When writing long distance letters, it is important to put on lots of information, because the bird that you start with isn't going to be the bird that delivers the letter. After the directions, hand the letter to the owl, don't worry about tying it on, unless you are far away from your closest Ministry of Magic headquarters. If so, just tie it loosely so that the owl doesn't have to worry about holding on the whole time.

The owl takes off, soaring through the stars. It is truly magical, to fly, even though every bird and insect can do it, you must know, that it is still a thing of magic to be so free. An owl isn't the symbol for wisdom for nothing, you know, they can be quite smart. It takes the letter to the Ministry, to a place made up of large crates painted orange with big signs above them all. This owl stops in two places, one is to drop a letter in the crate labelled 'Japan' and the other in the crate labelled 'China – South Eastern'. There the letters sit, and sit, and sit, waiting for the next twelve o'clock to tick by.

When it finally hits noon, the letters are teleported, much like using a portkey, to the desired destination. Once the letter reaches the proper country, the addresses are read aloud to Ministry owls who take them to their appointed houses. Thus, the day after Albus Dumbledore wrote a letter to Sakura Kinomoto and Xiao Lang Li, they arrive at the appointed houses and are read by the family.

* * *

Fujitaka knocked on the door for the third time in a row. No one was answering. Finally, he sighed and turned the handle. He hated going into his children's rooms uninvited, but this was important and Sakura was very upset. Yue had even been woken up by the emotional out put of his daughter and now paced incisively at the foot of the stairs. 

"_Sakura-san…?"_ he asked softly as he opened the door. Still getting no reply, he ventured to peak his head in. At once, he located her; she was lying on her bed, eyes red from being cried dry, playing with her black teddy bear. At the moment she was idly manoeuvring the arms so that it played peek-a-boo at her. The deadness in the eyes and face of his usually overly emotional, lively daughter scared Fujitaka. It reminded him of the look that had been on Touya's face the day the boy had come home from school and told his father that their mother was dead.

Though Fujitaka knew it already, he had been shocked when his son had informed him of it before he had even called the school. Fujitaka remembered that day well, when Touya lost his faith in the goodness of the world… when Touya lost his smile… As any father would, this was the last thing that he wanted to happen to his little girl. So, he approached the situation with far more caution then he had done when Touya had made that look. _"Sakura-san… sweetie…? Would you like to talk about something?"_

Her face squeezed as if fighting tears, but the tears had long run out, it was a look of pure pain and heartache. A look Fujitaka himself felt when his beautiful wife had died. Finally, Sakura just shook her head 'no' and hugged the bear to her chest tightly.

"_All right… Do you want me to send someone else up? Yue and Cerberus are very worried about you… so are Daidouji-chan and Touya-san…"_

After a moment, more of silence Sakura bolted up into a sitting position and flung her arms around her father's neck. At once, he held her small frame in a protecting and loving hug. After a long time of just sobbing dryly, she started to talk, at once saying the thing that came to her mind first. _"Don't I mean anything to him?" _she wailed. _"How could he… just forget me like that…! Tell me to forget him like that?"_

Not really understanding what she was saying, but knowing that it was Syaoran on the phone from what he had been told downstairs, he rubbed her back lovingly, trying his best to sooth his heartbroken little girl. Rocking her carefully, he sung to her like he had when she was little.

It took nearly an hour, but Sakura had calmed down enough for Fujitaka to talk to her about the letter. _"They extended the reply date until next week, so you don't have to decide right now…"_

Sakura shivered once again from the large emotional outburst and all of the hormones it shot through her body that had yet to fully wear off. She didn't know if she wanted to go to this school or not. And she was too tired to try to think about it. She gave a nod to show that she heard her father, and he got up and left her with the letter that could change her life for ever.

* * *

Sakura rubbed the sleep from her eyes; it was morning, or rather, closer to noon by where the shadows on the floor were… Why had they left her to sleep in so late? Why did she feel so awful? But a moment of pondering on the fact reminded her of the call the day before and the letter that still lay on her bed that her father had brought up later. _"If he can push me aside so easily…" _she told herself determinedly, _"then he can't be as wonderful as I thought! I will get over him, and I will be happy again! Just like with Yuki, he must just not be my real number one!"_

With that new discovery, she pulled of her old clothes changed into new ones and put on a smile. _"Yes, destiny says we were only made to be friends! I will not be mad, or upset, I will move on and find my real number one!"_ picking up the letter written in green ink, and putting the black teddy bear on the shelf with her other stuffed toys, she turned and skipped out of the room.

"_Mistress…"_ was the first sound that greeted her. She blinked at Yue who got to his feet from across the hall.

"Ohayo, Yue…" she said a little confused.

"_Orders, Mistress?"_ he asked, kneeling before her.

"_Hoe…? 'Orders'? What?"_

"_Mistress is upset. How can I serve you?" _

"_Oh, Yue, have you been sitting there all night? You really shouldn't worry yourself over me like that, I'm fine."_

"_I was made to ensure the safety and comfort of the barer of the Cards…"_ he recited as if it were a script he was made to memorise, his silver eyes reflecting some of the confusion that his eggshell face refused to be marred with.

"_Oh, Yue, for the last time, I don't want you to be my servant, I want you to be my friend…"_ The confusion tinged concern did not clear from the Moon Guardian's eyes, and so Sakura sighed and took his long delicate fingers between her own. _"Come on, come down with me while I eat and I will talk with you and Kero-chan about this letter I got yesterday, alright?"_

"_If that is what you wish, Mistress…"_ he said, raising to his feet as she lead him away with a shake of her head in defeat.

* * *

"**Somebody's in trouble…"** sang a female voice by the door. 

Without even opening his eyes, Syaoran spoke to the blackness of the meditation room. **"Well, you will be if you don't go away and leave me alone…"** he growled.

"**Don't make me laugh, you're good, I'll admit, but you've got a long ways to go before you can over-power me, cub."** the voice taunted.

"**Oh, just go away, Fuutie…"** Syaoran growled, throwing a scroll half-heartedly at her.

With a casual wave of her wrist, Fuutie, oldest of the five Li children, halted the burning paper and watched it smoulder away into ashes in mid air. It illuminated her shoulder-length roan red hair and her orb-like eyes that seemed to dance with their own flame of a deep cobalt blue. **"If that's the best you can do, then no wonder you failed to bring back the Clow Cards, now hurry to the Council Room. Mu qin does not like to be kept waiting."** and with that she turned and left.

"**M-mu qin?"** Syaoran stiffened at the very mention of her. Deciding it would be stupid to remain sitting where he was when his mother wanted him on nearly the other end of the large mansion, he sheathed his sword and ran out of the room. As he cleared the last corner and before he stepped through the doors, Syaoran paused to compose himself.

He entered the room with his head held high and his panting controlled, walked within ten paces and bowed low to the woman who looked down at him more coldly then usual. **"I am sorry to keep you waiting, Mu qin, Fuutie would not say what she was sent for."**

She studied her son for a moment, knowing that he would not straiten until she acknowledged him. **"Then you are not aware that the Li Clan's new Guardians have hatched?"**

The young heir stood slowly and nervously. Her voice was that of one not impressed, and he felt a wave of dread wash over him as he straitened and looked her in the eye. **"Mou…(1)"** he said nervously, **"I hadn't…"**

"**There were… apparently some complications with them…"** her voice sounded disappointed.

"'**Complications'? L-like what?"**

Ieran looked at her son for a moment or two, before walking past him and opening another off the many doors that lead into the room. **"You may come in now." **she informed whoever had been in the hall.

The first to walk in was a large feline with magenta fur and translucent wings in four sets that continually changed colour as if they were oil playing over the surface of water. It appeared to be a butchered mix of a lynx and a puma with it's tuff-tipped ears and long swooping tail and black rimmed mouth. Its blue eyes sparkled up at Syaoran as it opened it's mouth and he heard the voice he knew he would come to know well, for the first time. **"Meet you nicely, Messy-Hair Big-Thing!"**

Syaoran felt a lurch in his stomach area. The young, nondescript voice, spoke baby talk! Badly grammared baby talk at that! This was the last thing he needed, he was trying to make a good impression on the Elders, and he screwed up the spell that had been sent with the coffins enough to make a Guardian who talked BABY TALK! Now, everything that his mother had said so far made perfect sense. The looks, the disappointment in her voice, everything. He was ruined…

The other figure to walk into the room made Syaoran feel physically sick with dread. It was only a toddler! It looked distinctly female with short hair the colour of yellow used in baby things held up in a ponytail atop it's head, and powerful looking eyes, like fire burning behind ambers. It took in the whole room as it moved cautiously with tender footfalls. It was dressed in yellow with golden trim and red jewels. Its clothing was reminiscent of battle costumes that Tomoyo had made for Sakura to mach him, yet she never wore. It seemed to calculate him for a moment before bowing politely. **"It is an honour to meet you, Young Master Li."**

Syaoran blinked. It seemed that somehow all the intelligence of the pair of guardians was put into this little pointy-eared pixy-girl. She reminded Syaoran forcibly of both Yue and Spinel Sun with her calm collectedness. Ieran halted any further speculation on his behalf, though, by speaking up again, addressing the main issue. **"They have already named themselves, the Beast Guardian is for the moon and calls itself Chandra, and the other one is a Sun Guardian by the name of Yoko. You charged them, you cast the spell to finish their creation, they are supremely yours, though their personalities are questionable."**

"**I-I followed the spell, Mother, I--"**

"**Don't give me excuses!"** Ieran snapped. **"You are the heir, such mistakes should not have happened!" **Then, as if to think better of it, her voice softened. **"It should not have happened, but now that it has, what are you going to tell the Elders?"**

"**I-I don't know…"**

"**A poor answer, my son, now think! The Elders arrive in three hours to see the new Guardians; they expect creations of pride and power! How will you explain a mindless fur ball and an overly intelligent baby?"** Ieran demanded.

It happened so oddly, he could feel his irritation rising as his mother insulted the Guardians who he though little more of himself, but he spoke in defence of them without even knowing that he opened his mouth. **"Don't say that about them!"** He yelled at the woman who he respected more then any other.

Her black eyes widened in shock at being addressed in such a manner. **"What did you just say to me?"** Syaoran's hands jumped to his mouth in shock. Never in his life had he yelled at his mother, he had never dared! Her eyes thinned at him as she spoke again, voice cold and promising pain. **"I am not sure what you learned while you were in Japan, Xiao Lang, but I will not take being spoken to like that from anyone lower then me!"**

"**I'm sorry, mother; I don't know what came over me! I won't do it again, I promise!" **he pleaded, dropping to his knees to beg forgiveness of her.

"**Get up. You are a God, my son, and you bow to no one."** she growled, obviously displeased with having to let him off. **"There are more pressing matters to attend to, anyways. What are you to tell the Council of Elders? They are expecting greatness to rival Clow Reed! They are expecting--"**

"**I'm not Clow Reed, I am Li Xiao Lang…"**

"**What…?"**

"**My name is Li Xiao Lang, I am to lead this Clan before the year is up, and it is high time that this Clan steps out of Clow Reed's shadow. I have met Yue and Cerberus, they are far from perfect themselves, so what does it matter that my Guardians aren't either? He didn't make his before he was over a hundred, I made mine at the age of eleven, one would say that that has something to do with my skill in comparison to his…"**

Ieran then did something that Syaoran far from expected. She smiled at him. It was a mischievous yet proud smile, one that she had never let him see cross her features before this moment. **"Yes, er zi(2), I dare say that it does…"** she said in a soft voice that he would almost call loving if it hadn't come from her. **"Dismissed."** she said, back to her usual bark of orders. He bowed to her and left the room, his Guardian's in toe.

Syaoran finally came to sit on the front steps of the mansion, letting Yoko sit beside him and Chandra to come and lay on the platform above. **"What… just happened?"**

"**What does Master mean by the question? An insufficient amount of data to supply an accurate answer. Rephrase the question, please?"**

Syaoran looked down at Yoko blankly for a moment, before finally figuring out what she was saying. **"No, no, I was just talking to myself, I wasn't asking you anything…"**

Suddenly Syaoran felt something wet on the back of his neck run up to the top of his messy hair. When he turned around, he got a scratchy tongue slide across his cheek. **"Master all busy-head, Chandra make better!"** she said, and continued to lick Syaoran.

"**Did Clow Reed ever go through anything like this?"** complained Syaoran as he pulled his knees up under his chin.

* * *

(1)-Cantonese for "no" 

(2) – son, formal

* * *

"_So, you may be going to a boarding school?"_ Rika asked, eyes fuzzed out so that she wasn't really seeing what she was looking at. 

"_Yeah, maybe…"_ was Sakura's gloomy reply.

"_We're going to miss you…"_ Naoko said, _"if… if you do decide to go…"_

"_Oh, I'm going to miss all of you as well!"_ whimpered Sakura, getting up and throwing her arms around the necks of Naoko and Chiharu, who were sitting in front of her. Tomoyo and Rika quickly stood and joined the tearful group hug, while Yamazaki looked on.

"_You know… the thing about boarding schools is--"_ he began.

But Chiharu put a hand over his mouth. _"Not now, Takashi!"_ she scolded.

He pulled her hand away and said, somewhat indignantly, _"I was only going to say: the thing about boarding schools is that even if they are far away, you still have telephones, and e-mail, and letters, and such!"_

The conversation with Syaoran popped into Sakura's head. She had suggested to him the same three things, and he had told her to just forget he existed. She choked back a sob and forced a smile at them. _"Yes, we will stay friends. Forever."_

"_Hey, lets take one last walk around town, just for old times sake. This may be the last time we're all together like this, for a very long time."_ Tomoyo said, sadly.

A volley of agreements came, and they all began to walk. But Sakura's mind was plagued. 'This is the spot where Syaoran hugged me… and that over there is where Syaoran told me he loved me… and that there is where Syaoran…' the thoughts came and came and came. How, in the course of one year, had a boy that wasn't even her number one love affected her world so much? How was it that she couldn't even look at the street without remembering at least one thing that Syaoran had done or said there…

"_Everyone…"_ she began unsurely. _"Everyone, I have to go… I can't stay here, I have to get away from all these painful memories. Maybe I won't stay for the full seven years, but I have to get away, if only for now."_

Sad eyes looked on at the broken angel, and one by one they came and embraced her with promises that they understood and confessions renewed of missing her and loving her. Even Yamazaki gave her a hug, even though they had never been as close as the girls had.

They began walking again, and as they did, Sakura passed herself from hand to hand, talking to each in turn. _"I'm going to be waiting for you to write me that book of yours," _Sakura said, as she came up and gave Naoko's hand a squeeze.

"_Even though they're ghost stories? I thought you didn't like those…"_ Naoko said, confused.

"_I-it doesn't matter. You're my friend, I want to read them!"_ Sakura told her.

"_Really? You mean it?"_ Naoko asked, eyes lighting up.

"_Of course. I'll be expecting at least one chapter a month!"_ Sakura informed her. To this she got a hug, Naoko really was so insecure about her works that any insurance on a reader was an honour.

Sakura then passed herself to Rika. _"I'm not going to be all alone, Yuki is coming with me. He's going to be my translator in England."_ she announced.

"_Isn't he the one that's always eating?"_ Rika asked, running the name quickly through her head to match it with a face.

"_Yes, though I wish I was as good a cook as you are, I'll have to spend all my allowances just to buy him food to repay him!"_ Sakura said, covering her cheeks. _"Would you… would you send me recipes on how to cook better? Then, over Christmas break, I can make you all a big dinner and show you all that I've learned!"_

"_I'll look forward to tasting all the delicious foods that Sakura-chan makes!"_ Rika assured.

Then Sakura went to Tomoyo. _"I think I'll miss you the most of all my friends, because we are the closest. You're like… the big sister I never had… just… younger."_

"_I'm really going to miss you, too. I love you so much."_ Tomoyo replied, turning her head to hide the tears.

"_I love you to… Will you make clothes for me to wear on the weekends and nights?"_

"_Of course! And I'll video tape everything, so you don't miss anything! And will you take pictures of the clothes, and of England, and everything so that I can see what my Cute Sakura-chan sees?"_ Tomoyo replied.

"_Yes, I'll send you all pictures of everything, so you'll never miss out on any of my life!"_ They gave each other hugs, and Sakura walked on to Chiharu. _"And you, you will send me cute plushies, right?"_

"_Of course, if you send me cute plushies from England."_

"_Definitely!" _

The last person she approached was Yamazaki, though she didn't take his hand, the gesture was understood to have taken place. _"You know, in Canada when you're away from your loved ones, you set your watch to keep it on their time zone, and at noon, you clap twice while you think of them. It helps to keep them all together there, even though the place is so big."_

"_Really?"_ Sakura asked, _"That's so nice…"_

"_Will you clap your hands for us?" _Yamazaki asked her.

"_Yes. And will you clap your hands for me?"_ Sakura asked back.

"_Definitely! Without a doubt, we will!"_ Chiharu said, giving Sakura a hug.

"_And we will clap for Syaoran and Eriol-kun, too, because no matter what, we never will forget our friends, right?"_ Sakura asked, looking at each of them.

"_Always!"_ Agreed Rika.

"_Hey, let's go get some ice cream!"_ Naoko said, dragging Sakura off with her. Rika and Tomoyo were soon at their sides.

Chiharu took a hold of Yamazaki's hand. He smiled at her, _"For once you didn't hit me." _he said happily.

"_That was a nice lie you told, it really helped Sakura-chan. I won't hit you for something so sweet."_ she told him.

"_Would you clap for me, if I went away?"_

"_Every day."_

* * *

She looked on as he stood there, alone, in the middle of the field. He always seemed to be alone. The wind tore at his hair and clothing, causing him to stand at a weird angle that wasn't quite considered upright. Her hair whipped up and danced in knots and her long dress billowed as she approached him. **"You di(1)!"** she called, louder then normal, to get her voice above the torrent. 

He turned at once and looked at her, taking a moment before he let himself smile. **"Jie jie(2),"** he acknowledged, **"what are you doing out here?"**

"**Looking for you."** she told him as his concentration let out and the winds died down to a passive breeze. **"I heard from Fuutie that there were some difficulties with the Guardians. Do you want to talk about it?"**

"**Hoe? What did she tell you?"** Syaoran asked, sinking at once into a sitting position at her feet.

"**Ho… e…? I don't think I know that word…"** Shiefa admitted. **"What does it mean?"**

Syaoran started. **"I-I said that?"** he asked. At the second Li child's nod, Syaoran flopped back. **"It doesn't mean anything, it's just something that I picked up while in Japan. Just an expression."**

Shiefa blinked down at the moody eleven-year-old, then smiled and sat down herself. **"So, what's her name?"** she asked conversationally, as if it were a comment on the weather.

"**Wh-what! H-how did you know about her!"** Syaoran demanded, sitting upright and as red as the eyes that stared at him.

Wide, shocked eyes, for that matter. **"Whoa… I-I only meant it to be a joke…"** then, she brought her hands up under her chin and smiled dreamily. **"My little brother has had his first crush! How cute!" **She then turned her eyes on him, hungry, **"so, what's she like? What's you're type?"**

Having realised his blunder far, far too late to change it, he just thanked the moon that it was Shiefa and not Feimei or one of the others that had found out. With Shiefa, it was ok to just blush and tell her he'd rather not talk about it, and though she would far from stop pestering him, she would at least take the hint that this wasn't something he wished shared with the rest of the family, or worse, the Clan.

As he stuttered out his insistences to be left alone, Shiefa's mind floated along how wonderful it was that he had gotten a crush. How cute it would have been to watch him fall in love, and how sad it was that she had missed it. She looked at him, trying to remember that he wasn't the little kid that she had read stories to when they were both so much younger. **"According to Clan Law, you're almost a man… this Solstice… you will not be the baby of the family anymore, you will be the head, the leader…"**

"**I-I might not…"** he started.

"**You will, I know you will. It's what you were born for, raised for. It is your destiny to run the Clan…"** She told him, then pulled him to her and kissed his forehead. Pulling out a brush from her ever-present purse, she began to pull it through his hair like she had done to put him to sleep when he was a toddler. **"But you're going away, to become the best China-no, the world-has ever seen. I'm going to miss you, you only just got back to us, but you're leaving again so soon… and for seven years… you'll be a man when you come back from your training, by every sense. I'll hardly even know you when I see you again."**

"**I will miss you, too. Home, the people, the energies… Jie jie, take me to sit under the Zēng Zŭ Fù Chún(3)? Tell me the story, one last time? Because… even if I do come back, even for winter break, I wouldn't be a boy anymore! I wouldn't be aloud to lay in your lap and listen to stories!"**

"**Alright."** She took his hand and walked with him to an old oak tree, nearly large enough to fit a suburban house within. They found themselves an obviously favourite sitting spot, warn out from years of use, and as Shiefa leaned back and started to talk, Syaoran made himself comfortable in her lap. **"Zēng Zŭ Fù Chún is the oldest tree in all of China. It has resided on the family land for longer then the Clan's history goes back. In fact, there has been many who have said that the Li Clan chose this spot because of the presence of the old oak making it holy. **

"**The legend that was handed down through the locals, and the family, says that long ago, when the world was still young, the Zēng Zŭ Fù Chún was planted by a tree cutter's son named Suilong—who Fu qin(4) named you after—from a cutting of the original tree of life. Suilong was said to train under the branches, gaining him the wisdom of Nü-gua(5), and became a great warrior who protected these lands from apposing forces.**

"**Fu qin loved those stories, loved this tree. I know that you don't remember him, you were hardly more then a baby, after all, when he died, but I know that he still sits within the branches of the Zēng Zŭ Fù Chún. While we're under here, he can see us, and I know that he is very, very proud of his son."**

"**I wish… that Fu qin was still alive. I-I don't think I'm ready to lead. What if I do something wrong? What if I'm no good, and the Clan suffers because of it? I… I can't be the leader that Mu qin is… I'm not ready for this, I'm not strong enough, I'm not wise enough…"** Syaoran rambled all of his fears.

Shiefa brushed the hair out of his eyes and smiled at him. **"It's ok, you'll have Mu qin to guide you, and the Elders, not to mention us… Even if you are in England, we can still write to each other. Wizards do have a mail system, after all."**

"**Yeah…"**

"**So you can talk to us, and your little girlfriend in Japan…"**

"**Wh-what? No, she's not my girlfriend! Besides, I'll be gone for seven years, even if she did love me enough to be my girlfriend, how could I ever ask her to wait that long? It would be cruel to her. I can't do it."**

"…**You… really are in love with her, aren't you?"** Shiefa's eyes looked on to her brooding brother with pained, tear-filled eyes.

"**Huh!… I… um… … … yes…"**

Shiefa swept Syaoran into a hug, **"Oh, my baby brother… my poor, poor baby brother…"**

"**It's not like it'd ever turn out, anyway, the Elders will arrange my marriage for as soon as they can manage to."** he reminded her gloomily.

"**Well, you know I still want to hear all about her, I want to know who managed to steal my You di's steel-plated heart."**

"**You di! There you are! Mu qin wants you, she said the Elders are here…"** Feimei called as she ran up to her two siblings.

"**We'll continue this conversation when I take you to London to get your school supplies!"** announced Shiefa as she pushed Syaoran to his feet and he set of running.

Having nothing better to do, Feimei walked over and helped pull Shiefa to her feet. **"What conversation? What were you talking about?"** asked the long haired girl.

"**Oh, nothing much, just stuff…"** was Shiefa's vague reply as the two sisters wandered back to the house.

* * *

(1) – Little Brother, formal 

(2) – Older Sister, informal

(3) – paternal great grandfather tree of heaven

(4) – father, formal

(5) – the Black Turtle, direction of south, and goddess of the earth, the maker of humans

* * *

Well, there you have it, several decisions made, several emotional moments, an introduction to two new characters, and a little depth put into several characters that usually are ignored personality-wise. This has been an attempt to show the differences in the way Sakura and Syaoran were raised, and how that has effected their over-all mind set in life. Well, for next chapter, you find out how the Elder's react, the Li's head to England, and Sakura's friends plot a plan against her. All this and more in the next chapter: Goodbye isn't Forever 

Shade and Sweet Water!


	5. Goodbye isn't Forever

Before I get into this chapter I would just like to take a moment to reflect and say how truly touched I am that though I was without internet for over a year, and therefore unable to update my story, I continued to receive reviews. One of the greatest honors a writer can receive is to have their work appreciated and read, even in their absence. And so, to everyone that took the time to read my works and hopefully to just as many who enjoyed them, I dedicate this chapter to you.

Yours Faithfully,

Key of the Game

* * *

Chapter 3: Goodbye isn't Forever

Syaoran stood with his head bowed before the members of the Li Clan's Council of Elders. Sour old faces of men and women stared down at him with harsh eyes. They were the best of the best in their day, now they had the honour of deciding the fate of the Clan. If Syaoran could not impress the Council of Elders before Solstice, he would be denied the ability to lead his Clan.

The only problem was, were not a very easy group to impress.

Beside Syaoran stood Ieran, speaking proudly, for the Warlord never lowered her head to any. "**Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council of Elders, you have been summoned today to examine my son's newest feat. At the age of eleven, a full one-hundred-and-twenty-nine years younger then Clow Reed, he has succeeded in creating Guardians!**"

At their mention, the two guardians obediently stepped forward. They had previously been instructed very strictly not to make a sound unless asked a direct question from one of the Elders, and Syaoran had to fight the sick feeling he was getting at the thought of the Elders questioning Chandra. He would have to work very hard with her in the near future to correct her speech patterns as best as he could. Though going to Hogwarts would, indeed, make things more difficult. Though he knew little of the wizard's culture, he did understand enough to know that they were not used to animals that spoke human languages.

"**Though they are still not yet even a full day old and require much training, I feel confident that given time they will make this clan proud as symbols of power and prestige!**"

Though the eyes of the elders were bearing down upon them, burning into the nervous boy's bowed neck like sunlight through a magnifying glass, his mother--last of the great War Lords of ancient times--spoke with no greater concern than she did when she was addressing one of her own children. Intimidated as he was, Syaoran swallowed the lump in his throat and straightened his posture.

Though he didn't lift his gaze from the floor, his determined change in stance caught everyone's eye, he felt sure. Indeed, his mother stopped speaking, and even took a step back behind him, leaving him front and center to continue talking to the Elders in her place.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself and praying to every god and deity he could think of not to make a fool of himself, Syaoran took a shaky step forward. "**M-most honorable of Elders,**" he began, "**how long has it been since... since Clow Reed left us?**"

There was an almost annoyed shifting among his audience, he even heard one of them whisper to a neighbor that they didn't have time to give a child a history lesson.

Syaoran swallowed hard again, then answered his own question as he continued. "**It has been centuries since he stood as a member of our mighty Clan, and yet even today we cling to his shadow, unwilling--though not unable--to move beyond him.**"

There was a general murmur of consent at what the young heir said, and many sounds were made to indicate that he should continue.

"**As you probably know very well already, I leave for England before the afternoon is up. The unexpected hatching of the new Guardians is my only reason for delay. But I do not go to follow in the footsteps of Clow Reed, I go instead to gain knowledge and power for the betterment of my people.**

"**And though I am the heir, I am not the only one who betters this Clan. Each and every one of you were chosen to sit on this fine council for the great deeds you accomplished in your youth and the wisdom those experiences granted you help you in the shaping of our great era.**

"**Though some of you may see these Guardians as a test, and therefore a 'pass' or a 'fail', I ask you to please, look at it instead as yet another experience, and hopefully far from the last, that will one day help me to better our people as a whole so we can step out from the shadow of Clow Reed and into the light of a greater and more prosperous future.**"

He looked up at each face as he finished his little speech, not really sure where in there he had raised his eyes to meet theirs, but noting that none looked displeased with him doing so. He wanted so desperately to turn and see if his mother looked on disapprovingly, but he also knew that that would appear too weak, to go running to his mother for reassurance. So he set his jaw and did not move or speak again until the council had ceased its internal whisperings.

Finally one old man who's white beard flowed down past his knees and with fingernails that curled back on themselves, spoke. "**Very well, young lord. We, the Council of Elders for the Clan of Li, declare that the Guardians may bare the blessing and power of the Clan. We allow them to assume sealed form to the artifact: the Sword of the Elements.**"

And with that said, it was done. The Elders stood and filed out in no certain order until all that were left were Ieran, the two Guardians, and the petrified Syaoran. Ieran took a moment to smile knowingly at her youngest. It took nearly everything he had to speak up before the Council like that, and her pride in him for doing so was indeed abundant.

After letting herself have that one moment of parental pride, Ieran graced her husband's heir with one of her rare compliments. "**You did well, my son. Very diplomatic. Though the flattery was a new tactic for you, I doubt it will work again as well next time because of it. Did you pick that up in Japan?**"

Syaoran swallowed for a third time that hour and turned to his mother, "**I guess...**" he replied, he didn't really know what else to say.

"**Well, you have Guardians to seal and a plane to catch. One mustn't dawdle around all day.**"

* * *

Chiharu and Yamazaki were out on one of their play dates, a precious pair but with heavy hearts. They sat, so late in summer, on a bench in Penguin Park licking ice cream and holding hands. Though it was still early in the afternoon, they felt like it was closer to sunset with all the things that had happened that day.

Sakura had left quite quickly after they had made their rounds together, Tomoyo had walked her home, and Chiharu and Yamazaki had decided to go a different way from Rika and Naoko soon afterwards. The conversation today was more serious than it was on their average date.

They had spoken long and hard on Sakura's going away, and on her and Syaoran's feelings for each other. There were tears shed and questions asked about their own relationship, and when it all came to an end, they did indeed know more about each other.

Yamazaki looked over at Chiharu for a moment and pouted to himself. "_I hate it when you're depressed._" he admitted while he looked at her.

"_You hate it when anyone is upset!"_ Chiharu pointed out.

"_Yeah, but I really hate it when you're upset_." he repeated. Chiharu forced herself to smile for him, but that only brought a deeper frown to his face. "_Don't._" He said smushing his thumb against her lips. "_Smiles are only pretty when the person smiling means it._"

Chiharu let her head sink and let a tear come to her eye. "_Well, then I suppose you're out of luck. I don't think I can smile while knowing that Sakura-chan is going away. Especially because the reason she's leaving is a broken heart..._"

Yamazaki put his arm around Chiharu's shoulders and pulled her in close to him. He rested his chin on top of her head and pondered on what she said. "_I suppose I am... I don't know what we could do to cheer her up. I would just tell her a joke, but that wouldn't work because she always just believes them to be real. Though I have to admit, that is one of her cuter traits._"

Chiharu was forced to chuckle at that. Yamazaki really was twisted in his sense of humor. "_You would find that cute, wouldn't you?_" but it was then that Chiharu was struck with a revelation. "_I know! Why don't we throw her a going away party?_"

"_Oh, so you want to celebrate getting rid of her?_" Yamazaki teased.

Chiharu hit him for that one. "_No, you idiot! Let's just... make the last of her time here a happy one._"

"_Something tells me you want to go and find the others now?_" It was really more of a statement than a question, but he raised the tone at the end of the sentence to be polite.

"_You bet! Let's go!_" and with that they were off.

* * *

"**You ready to go?**" Sheifa asked as she poked her head in to Syaoran's room.

"**I suppose,**" was his reply. He closed his suitcase and locked it and began to walk away, but stopped and returned for a pink winged teddy bear that had been sitting beside his suitcase.

Sheifa could not help but raise an eyebrow at her brother for even having such a thing, and when he caught sight of her look, he blushed and tossed it back on his bed. But he didn't even get to the door when he returned for it once again. He stood and held it, pondering something only he could know.

Finally Sheifa rolled her eyes "**It belonged to your little girlfriend, didn't it?**" she asked in a knowing tone. "**Come on, just put it in your bag and lets get outside before any of the others come looking for you and see it.**"

Having an outside source give confirmation to those actions, Syaoran put the bear in the suitcase quickly and followed his sister out to the front door. "**And she's not my girlfriend...**" he grumbled before they reached earshot of the others.

Sheifa gave him a look as if to say 'yeah, sure, whatever', but changed the subject as they were nearing the others. "**Are you not taking the Guardians with you?**"

"**No, mother thinks it would be for the best if they stayed here this time.**" Syaoran replied, happy to be on a less depressing subject than his failed love life.

"**Ah, finally. Let's go!**" Feimei called as the missing two siblings walked up.

"**Remind me again why you're all coming?**" Syaoran complained, putting his hands on his hips.

"**Shopping trip, duh!**" Fanren pointed out as if he'd have to be stupid not to see it himself.

"**For me to go to school...**" he attempted to remind the lot of them.

"**Well, you're obviously going to need something to wear while you're there!**" Feimei pointed out.

"**And there's no saying that back to school stores are the only ones that we necessarily will go to. If we by mistake walk into one or two others instead...**" Fuutie pointed out.

"**Uhg! You girls are going to bankrupt this family...**" Syaoran growled, putting his face in his hand. To this he got a general round of giggles, from Sheifa included, meaning that she had just as much intention to shop as the rest of them. "**We may as well be going, we don't want to miss the plane.**"

* * *

Two small female figures moved purposefully down the sidewalk of beautiful Tomoeda. Their motion was slow but steady and lacked any signs of physical strain though there was admittably a lack in the energy one might expect in two such young girls.

"_Onii-chan's going to kill me when I tell him..._" Sakura admitted, looking bashful.

"_I'm sure he'll understand._" Tomoyo encouraged. "_It's just... a shame that Li-kun has done this to you._"

"_It's not him, Tomoyo-chan._" Sakura said as they approached her front door, though by the tone of her voice it was clear that she was attempting to convince herself of that fact more than Tomoyo. "_It's like Kero-chan keeps saying; everything happens for a reason. I wouldn't have gotten that letter unless I was supposed to go to that school._"

Sakura opened the door and announced her presence as always, but for once not even her guardians responded. Infact, they were in one of their heated arguments that was so typical of opposing forces.

"_Would you quit being so stubborn all the time?!_" Cerberus yelled, almost at the top of his lungs.

"_Would you quit being so jealous of the Mistress's attentions?!_" Yue retorted in his own quiet version of a yell.

"_This goes beyond that, and you know it!_" Cerberus growled out in frustration.

"_There is nothing beyond my Mistress!_" Yue insisted.

"_It's Sakura-chan's wishes that I'm thinking about!_" Cerberus insisted.

Sakura chose this moment to intervene. Coming up in between them without any fear, she held a hand up to each. Yue instantly fell to one knee in respect while Cerberus continued to chew Yue out. "_That's enough, Kero-chan._" Sakura said absently. "_What's this all about? Why are you two fighting now?_"

"_Cerberus doesn't want me to come with you!_" Yue accused.

"_Kero-chan, is that true?_" Sakura demanded, agast.

"_No!_" Cerberus insisted. "_He's twisting what I'm saying!_" When Sakura just looked at him expectantly, the sun guardian ruffled his feathers indignantly and sat down to explain the situation to his young mistress. "_While you were out with Tomoyo-chan and your other friends, the Otou-san came up with a very good point._"

Yue made to interject, but Sakura silenced him with a gesture.

"_He pointed out that the Onii-chan is Yue's source of magic, and that if they get too far away from each other, then Yue might fade away again. But Yue's being too stuborn and saying that he won't stay behind!_"

Sakura was filled with horror at the thought, but Yue jumped to his own defence. "_I am a Guardian, my place is at the side of my Mistress!_"

"_Your place is with the Onii-chan! I can guard Sakura-chan perfectly fine by myself!_"

"_You wouldn't be able to guard her against a power like Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon's!_"

"_What makes you think I'd have to?!_"

"_Power draws chaos! You know that!_"

"_And what if you do disappear?! How much can a dead guardian guard?!_"

"_If I die serving my Mistress, I have done my purpose and have no regrets, just as a guardian should. You are a failure as a Guardian Beast if you do not feel the same way!_"

"_NO!_" Sakura's sudden outburst shocked even Cerberus into silence. Tears were streaming down her face and her nose was all red. "_I won't go, then! I won't go if it means someone is going to die! I don't want you to die, Yue! I don't want anyone to die!!_"

She flung herself on the silver being and was soon encompassed in a hug. "_Now look what you did! You've upset her saying such things!_"

"_You upset her with your stubborness to not just stay here with the Onii-chan like you should!_"

"_Stop arguing over me, please, both of you!_" Sakura insisted.

"_I live to be of service to my Mistress._" was all Yue said.

He didn't need to say anything more, she understood that she couldn't talk him out of his decision, but still she had to try and explain to him what he meant to her. "_If you, either of you, any of you died to protect me... I don't think I could continue on, anyway. I'd rather die myself than have to live knowing that someone took my place for me!_"

The mindless love, love that took no proof or action to entice, that she saw shining from his eyes told her that her efforts were for nought. It was just one of those things Yue would never understand, nor was he supposed to. He would obey her every wish, whim, and fancy, but he was a Guardian Beast and was created for her protection. Telling him otherwise would be as pointless as telling the sun not to set or the moon not to rise.

"_Um..._" Tomoyo's voice was so uncertain when speaking up that it took Sakura a moment to realize that someone had even made a noise. "_You need to get you're school supplies, right? I mean, they have to have a special school supply store for it or something, because I don't think you'd be able to find wands and cauldrons just anywhere..._"

"_That's right, they have a street there in London, Daigon Alley, that only magic users can access. It supplies Britain with all of it's Magical merchandise._" Yue informed, returning to his normal tone of voice.

"_Well, it's just..._" Tomoyo eyed Sakura to see if she really ought to continue, "_Sakura-chan was looking forward to this school thing, and now I think she'd rather not go because she's worried about Yue-san, but maybe if Yukito-san takes Sakura-chan to get the supplies and Touya-san stays here..._"

She didn't even have to finish the sentence, everyone understood enough. Yue looked to Sakura for her decision. "_Would that please you?"_

"_Yes, then we could find out if there really will be any troubles involving you and Onii-chan being apart!_" Sakura said, returning slightly to her normal happy self.

With the argument overwith, Yue and Cerberus returned to their sealed forms. Yukito ruffled Sakura's hair affectionately, said his greeting to Tomoyo, and wandered off to go find where Touya had gotten to during his alter-ego's possession. Kero, now with nothing better to do, went to the fridge to get a snack before going upstairs to play his newest video game that Sakura had bought him, a proof to him that he was loved. Sakura and Tomoyo, for their part, went to find Fujitaka to tell him about her decision.

* * *

Rika had just barely taken off her shoes when the phone rang. Running to get it, she picked up the reciever and held it to her ear. "Moshi-moshi?"

//Rika-chan, is that you?// the voice said from the other end of the line, barely containing it's excitement.

"_Chiharu-chan? What's up?_" Rika asked, kind of surprised as Chiharu's happy tone.

//I was thinking, let's throw Sakura a going away party!// Chiharu announced, proud of herself.

As soon as it was said, Rika's face lit up. "_Oh, that would be a wonderful idea! A surprise party is just the thing Sakura-chan needs right now!_"

//Surprise party? You think it should be one of those?//

"_Oh yes!_" Rika insisted, "_I could bake a cake--do you think angels food or devil's food would be better?--and Tomoyo-chan likes cameras, right? So she can be the one..._"

//Rika-chan? ...Rika-chan... Rika-chan...!//

* * *

Having a private jet really was a convenience, Syaoran noted as he looked out the window. The limo ride had been an annoyance. Sheifa wouldn't stop smiling slyly at him, Fuutie had been going through a catolog of stores on her laptop, planning out routes they could take for shopping, while Fanren and Feimei squeeled about all the cute English boys they might or might not meet. Now that they were on the jet at least, they were arguing amongst themselves on which inflight movie they should watch first.

It would take hours to get to England, Syaoran knew, and as he watched the jet roll off the ground and up towards the clouds he couldn't help but wonder what Sakura was doing. He blushed slightly against his will at the thought of her, and cursed himself quietly for not being able to get her out of his head. It wasn't like he'd ever be able to see her again... He was zapped back to reality when he felt someone sit in the seat next to him.

Looking over, he didn't even bother hiding the groan at seeing Sheifa sitting there smiling at him. "**Well, now that they're all so nicely occupied, you owe me an explanation.**"

"**No, I don't.**" Syaoran replied.

"**Oh, come on, Xiao Lang! I promise I won't tell them about her, but at least get it off your chest with me!**" Sheifa prodded onward.

"**If I tell you, then will you leave me alone?!**" he growled out testily.

Sheifa made a crossing moton over her heart with a finger. "**I give you my word.**"

"**I don't see what the big deal is, it's not like I'd be able to go on dates with her or anything...**" Syaoran grumbled, trying to beat around the bush. "**The Clan wouldn't approve of her, and I'm going to England...**"

"**Wouldn't... why? She's not one of those without any power, is she?**" Sheifa asked, worriedly. If that was Syaoran's type...

"**No!**" he said, sounding properly offended that she would assume so. "**She-she just doesn't have a Clan...**"

"**Oh, one of those sorts, huh?**" Sheifa said, nodding to herself. "**So, how did you come across this nobody?**"

"**She's not really a nobody...**"

"**But... you said she didn't have a Clan!**"

"**I know I did, but she's still not a nobody.**" Syaoran pointed out.

"**Well,**" Sheifa started expectantly. "**Then who is she?**"

"**She's the Mistress of the Cards.**" Syaoran stated pointedly, but he wasn't looking at Sheifa and was very red in the face.

"**Wh-what?!?**" The news took Sheifa so much by surprise that she slipped right from the seat and hit the floor with a thud. Quickly pulling herself back up to sitting next to her brother, she continued in urgent whispers of a gossiping girl. "**Are you crazy?! Do you have any idea how much face you lost because of that girl?!**"

"**Ugh! Don't remind me!**" Syaoran said, putting his hands over his ears and looking like he was going to be sick.

"**Wait, why would a girl with no family be strong enough to be a Card Captor?**" Sheifa pondered.

"**Her father is the reincarnation of Clow Reed.**" Syaoran explained.

"**You're kidding!**" but all it took was one look at her brother's face to know that he wasn't. "**Woah... Well, if she really is Clow Reed's daughter, then it makes sense that she would be the one to carry on in his place. And therefore, you didn't really loose face because she was the one they were best suited for.**" Sheifa tried to cheer him up.

"**Hmph.**" was his only reply.

"**...Well, also... if she marries into the Li Clan then we haven't really lost the cards...**" Sheifa pointed out.

"**Wh-what? Who would she be--**" Syaoran started jealously, then saw the look on his sister's face and understood. "**I-I couldn't-that is-we aren't-I haven't-I don't--**"

Sheifa giggled at how easily she managed to tease him about this crush of his and threw her arms around his neck in a hug. "**Awa! Xiao Lang is so cute!!**"

* * *

"_Are you excited about the trip?_" Yukito asked as he handed Sakura her orange juice and made himself comfortable in the seat next to her.

"_Oh yes!_" Sakura exclaimed, turning her attention from out of the airplane window and to her moon guardian. "_I'm so happy that Otou-san is letting me go. And thank you again, Yuki, for coming with me._"

"_You don't need to thank me, Sakura-chan, it's like your father said when he found out about your magic, you'll always have my support._"

Flashback

"_So... so you're not mad at me?_"

"_No, why should I be?_"

"_I-I didn't tell you..._"

"_No, but I still knew. I've always known that you and Touya-san were sensitive and special. But you've said on several occasions that you were afraid of your abilities. So, I never pushed you to confess, I knew you would come to me with it when you were ready._"

"_Bu-but-but--_"

"_Sakura-san, I am your father, and I love you dearly and wish you nothing but the best, but sometimes being the best parent isn't shielding your child from harm or to pry into their business, but to step back and let your child struggle through and find their own path while providing them with the knowledge and ability to come to you whenever they need you._" Fujitaka paused, letting this information sink in for his daughter before he continued. "_Sakura, you are loved, by far more than you may know, and though I may not always be right at your side when you need it, your brother, your guardians, your friends... everyone that cares for you will be there to help you as you need it, because that's what love is._"

Kcabhsalf

Yes... Sakura thought to herself, I am loved, and because of that, because I love in return, I can get through anything. Everything will surely be alright.

* * *

Well, there you have it. Chapter written in the course of one night... my fingers hurt! So, tell me how you liked it? Was it worth the wait? I'll most likely end up expanding this chapter in the future to include more of the little things that I had originally intended for it, but as it stands at the moment, to get the story to continue flowing, I'll leave it at this. Next chapter there is more planning for the party, as well as Sakura and Syaoran, along with their respective escorts, run around London to get the shopping done. There's only one problem: where exactly is this Daigon Alley?! If enough people request it, Eriol may even make an appearance in the upcoming chapter. Well, see you next time in Chapter 4: For Love, War, and Stores

Shade and Sweet Water, everyone

Keysha


	6. For Love, War, and Stores Part 1

Ok, just a reminder to everyone:

Bold: Chinese

Italics: Japanese

Normal font: English

* * *

Chapter 4: For Love, War, and Stores Part One

Beauty knows many faces; the exotic, the innocent, the sly. Each pair of eyes sees something slightly diferent when seeing beauty, but a universal truth is that it comes with confidence and power. Is it any wonder, then, that when four of the world's most powerful young women exited their privet jett late that evening that the public became within a matter of seconds their captive audiance? They walked with the twins on the right and the older two ladies on the left. In the middel was a scouling boy of eleven years of age. All five had brown hair ranging from a cinimine to a milk chocolate, and they were quite the sight as they walked so full of pride and prestige.

"**So,**" Feimei began, "**where are we going to go?**"

"**A limou will be picking us up out front to take us to the Beaufort Hotel. We will go and find the stores tomorrow.**" Fuutie stated, naturally taking the posision of leader.

"**Well, I hope they have the penthouse ready for us, I wish to relax for the rest of the night.**" Sheifa stated, streatching and shifting to get out the kinks from sitting so long on the jett ride there.

"**As long as they have room enough for me to get a workout in before bed, I'll be happy.**" Syaoran stated, putting his hands behind his head in a bored sort of way.

"**Just don't cut up any of the furniture, this time...**"

"**I wonder how their stereo system is...**" Fanren pondered.

"**I want to go take a nice long soak in a hot bath...**" Feimei insisted.

As said, the limousine awaited the Li children out front. The ride to the hotel was largely uneventful, save for the whinning and giggling that one often can not avoid when putting four teenaged beauties together, especially when you leave them unsupervised. And though they failed to obtain the penthouse they had been hoping for, due to it being previously occupied, with little fussing and flashing of plastic they were son settled in the next best thing.

As soon as the family set foot in the room, they were off in their own directions. Fanren had no trouble finding the CD player, Feimei instantly took off to examine the bath, Fuutie spotted the magazines and made herself comfortable flipping through them, and Shiefa went to the phone to order up some food from room service. With a sigh, Syaoran dug into his pockets and pulled out a tip for the bellhop, before sending him away so that he could relax in peace. That idea was shot when Feimei gave a scream, though.

All four siblings rushed to see what was wrong, only to round the corner and find thier sister examining the content of the salts box. Looking up to see the annoyed expressions of her family, she smiled at them bashfully before showing them her discovery. "**Look at all these fragrances! With my privet colection I could make a masterpiece of aromathreapy! Do you think they sell these around here?**"

Fuutei smiled in an almost teasing way at her youngest sister. "**Oh probably.**" she agreed.

Sheifa came over and looked at the colection of salts and oils herself, "**Are you thinking of having some spaw time?**"

"**Hmm.**" Feimei acknowledged, nodding. "**Would you like to join me?**" she asked her sisters in general.

"**Alright.**" Fuutie came in as well.

"**I could use a nice relaxing rest.**" Fanren acknowledged. She then turned to Syaoran, "**Can you go in my bag and put on one of the Zen CD's for me?**"

He didn't even get a chance to answer when the door was closed in his face. He gave a sigh and went to do her bidding, figuring he may as well get in some meditation before they came out and started being noisy again. He had barely put the CD in and settled down before there was a knock on the door and he had to get up again to see who was pestering him. The room service jumped slightly at the black look the boy was giving them. They had seen their fair share of spoiled brats and grumpy company, but something in this kid's golden eyes said that he had more then just an attitude, he had the power to do something with his attitude!

"What do you want?" he demanded.

The two hotel workers looked at each other insicurely, before shaking it off. This was just a kid, what the hell could he do? "Room service. You ordered a meal?"

Rolling his eyes, Syaoran stepped aside and let them in. He recalled Shiefa doing so before going to join the others in the bath. "How much do I owe you...?" he asked tiredly, digging into his pocket once more for his wallet.

"It will be billed with the room." one of the workers informed politely.

Syaoran nodded, showing that he understood, and shoved his wallet back where he had pulled it from as he stepped up to the bathroom door and knocked. "**Sheifa! Food's here!**"

"**Oh good! Have them bring it in!**" Fanren called back.

"**Yes! We're starving!**" Sheifa insisted.

"**And can they send someone to wash our backs?**" whined Fuutie.

Rolling his eyes, Syaoran turned to the two who brought the food. "They want it in there." he said, indicating the bathroom.

"They?" one of them asked nervously.

"Yeah, and they also want someone to be sent up to wash their backs." Syaoran confirmed, walking away and going back to meditating.

Insicurely, the people from room service did as they were told. Opening the door slowly, they entered to find the four sisters sitting around the bath as if it were a hottub. Each was wrapped in a towel, and their fine silk dresses lay folded on the sink counter. "Well, hurry up!" Fuutie insisted impatiently.

"And when will someone come to scrub our backs?" fumed Feimei.

"You can leave the pudding out for Xiao Lang. But I want the cherries over by me!" Sheifa insisted.

The two workers eyed each other. No wonder that boy had been scowling. These girls were spoild rotten! Not sure if they'd get fired for not obeying, seeing as these children had one of the most expensive suites there, they went ahead and placed the food out to the girl's request. On their way out they saw the boy sitting in the middle of a rolled out rug that had a fancy circular design. He opened an eye and watched them as they left but made no other move to acknowledge them.

The door closed behind them, and Syaoran once more closed his eye and returned to a state of meditation. With in the bathroom, the girls sat and picked at the finger foods supplied for them. "**You know,**" Fanren stated in a drawn out ho-hummish sort of way, "**even if You di **(1)** does make it as the new Clan head, Mu qin will most likely stay on as figure-head.**"

"**We'll all be given advisary posissions until he's really ready to lead on his own.**" Sheifa pointed out. "**It wont just be Mu qin.**"

"**But Xiao Lang is still so obediant to her, will anything even change?**" Fuutie pointed out.

"**I don't think Mu qin would push her athority on him once his leadership is made official. She does right now because she's the Clan leader, but she treats us the same way.**" Feimei observed.

"**She pushes him ten times harder then she does us...**" Fanren stated. "**She lets us get away with almost anything.**"

"**She treats him like she tearted me before he was born.**" Fuutie pointed out. "**Hard and cold as ice to toughen him up so he can deal with the pressures of leading.**"

"**I guess...**" Fanren admitted, "**It just doesn't seem fair that we get freedom and he's made to practically break his body in preperation for solstice. I mean, does You di even know the meaning of the term 'goofing off'?**"

There was a moment of silence as each of the young women reflected on this statement. True, life had been hard for the all of them, being brought to the point of bleeding before being aloud to rest, but unlike them who could go and play once they had done their work, thier little brother seemed to just always be handed the next task to master. Even though the youngest of the girls were five years older then him, and they all were prone to tease him on occasion for not being able to keep up with them, it was more then just the Elder's expectations that continued to push him onwards until he could almost match skill with them.

But all the same, Sheifa smiled whistfully as she thought about his little crush that he had obtained over his rival. "**I believe he has. He's gotten his taste of freedom, the ability to make decisions for himself, and I think even Mu qin is going to have a hell of a time forcing him to submit again**."

"**I'm almost scared to see what sort of power he's going to have once it awakens to a true development in the next few years.**" Fuutie pointed out thoughtfully.

"**Do you think he's going to be anything like Clow Reed?**" Fanren pondered.

"**Oh, no! He told the Elders he wants to drop Clow Reed and go his own way.**" Feimei said in a gossip like whisper.

"**You were eves dropping on the Elder's examination?!**" Fanren demanded, looking agast at such an idea. The other two also looked on with minor surprise.

"**Oh, and like none of you were?**" Feimei accused, giving them all a pointed look.

Fanren looked to each of their older siblings in turn, neither were looking back and both were blushing in shame at being caught. "**What?! Oooh... why doesn't anyone ever call me for these things?**" and with that the second to last daughter began to sulk. The other three giggled out of nerves and once again the conversasion vered to far more pointless subjects.

* * *

The plane finally pulled to a stop and the seatbelt sign seased flashing. Yukito smilled down at his young charge who had fallen asleep somewhere over central China. He nudged her gently, incouraging her to stir both physically and through the link he shared with her via Yue. She mumbled something about there not being school today, and this earned a chuckle from her escort. "Sakura-chan..." he prompted once again. "_The plane has stopped, we're in London now..._"

"_Mmm...? London?_" She blinked the sleepiness from her eyes and looked questioningly at Yukito before her memory kicked in and she smiled at him. "_Are we going to go shopping now?_" She asked, standing up and stretching.

"_No, it's too late to go now. By the time we got there the stores would all be closed. We'll go tomorrow._"

"_Too late? Isn't it morning yet?_" Sakura whined a little as she picked up her handbag. From with in it Kero began to get active, and Sakura put a hand on him to tell him not to come out yet.

"_Not yet, Sakura-chan, London is in a diferent time zone, remember._" With a whimper and some mutterings about less then favourable situations, she resigned herself to hang sleepily off of her brother's boyfriend's hand.

He guided her out, the only child among all the people dressed in business suits. They collected their luggage, Sakura's small pink suitcases stood out in the rotation like a sore thumb, but they had to hunt for a bit to find Yukito's green dufflebag. Once they had all of their luggage, they went out to get a taxi.

_Alright Yue, where do we go now?_ Though most people wouldn't know it for his introverted nature, Yue actually had quite a lot to say. Too much, most of the time, it seemed. In fact, Yukito felt slightly bad in saying it, but Yue was very opinionated. Having his mind conected to Yue like it was had its moments of great annoyence, especially where his own wants conflicted with his alter ego's. Yue, it turned out, was quite god at throwing mental tempertantrums. And so the complete silence in responce to Yukito's question was surprising, especially being Yue tended to like ordering Yukito around. _Yue?_

The silence drug on for a moment more before Yue's cold tone floated forward. _This is different._ He admitted, almost sounding embarrassed. _They did not have planes when I was here last, I do not know where this is._ He pointed out indignantly.

With a sigh, Yukito shouldered his bag and took hold of both of Sakura's suitcases. "_Yue doesn't know his way from the airport, so we're going to have to find somewhere he recognizes first._" he explained apologetically to Sakura.

"_Ok._" she replied, more awake now and willing to be active. "_Are you really ok carrying everything, Yuki?_"

"_It's fine. Come along._"

"_Stupid Yue! Doesn't even know his way around London where we spent so long!_" Kero's voice came from the handbag.

Sakura opened it and looked in at her little golden Guardian. "_Does Kero-chan know how to get there?_" she asked hopefully.

"_Do I know? Of course I know! I know London like the back of my paw!_" he said confidently. Yukito had to nearly bite his tongue to hold back Yue's retort to that as Sakura pulled her head back to let Kero out. At once the small yellow animal shot to the sky, the faster he went meant the less chance there was that anyone would see him. He flew up as high as he could manage while still making out streets, and looked carefully at everything. He knew simply and at once that Yue was merely lost from the imence changes that had come to this metropolis, but he would not admit that at any cost.

After taking in a similar pattern of roads that he remembered around the area of Daigon Alley, he let himself drop back down until sitting with his upper body poking out of the hand-bag. "We need to go that way." he told them, pointing in the direction with his paw.

Jealousy, and a feeling of being insificient swarmed up from the resesses of Yue's mind. Yukito understood at once, but still took Sakura in the direction indicated by the little golden beast. On Sakura's insistance, she was aloud to carry one of her bags--the lighter one--and she did her best to keep up. It was after a good fifteen minutes of walking that Yukito stopped and turned around, "Sakura-chan, I can take that for you if you need me to..." he called back to her.

"No! You have enough things you're carrying already!" she insisted once she got about five feet away.

Yukito opened his mouth again to protest when something knocked into him. He was more sturdy then he looked, and heavier then whatever it was, so he merely stumbled, but the other one was small and light enough to fall to the ground. Turning quickly, Yukito noticed it was a woman who had come out of the store to his left, arms laden with bags so she couldn't see him. "Oh, I'm sorry, miss!" he appologised, putting down the suitcase and dufflebag to help colect her scattered groseries.

"Oh, no, it's alright, it was my fault! I'm too clumbsy, I should have been watching where I was going!" she insisted, also grabbing for her apples that were starting to roll towards the street.

"_M-Mizuki-sensie?!_" Sakura stammered. Both woman and guardian looked at Sakura in surprise, before finally looking at each other in realisation.

"_Mizuki-san!_" Yukito cried in delight.

"_Yukito-san? Sakura-chan?_" she questioned in a general state of confusion. But that feeling was quickly pushed asside when she lift a dripping carton of eggs. "M-my eggs..."

"_Oh, I'm very sorry, please, let me replace them._" Yukito insisted, pulling out his wallet.

Kaho smiled up at them all. "_No need, it's ok. I can go out again tomorrow and get more. Come, everyone will be thrilled to see you!_" she said, gathering refilled her bags and getting at last to her feet.

Anxious to see Eriol and the others again, Sakura did not even argue when Yukito took ahold of the suitcase that she had abbandoned in favour of helping the clean up. The three walked together for a good ten blocks or so before coming to a large victorian mansion. Kaho lead the way up to the front door, shifted her bags for a moment before she pulled out her keys and unlocked the door. Opening it up, she called out, "I'm home!" before excusing herself to go and put away her groseries.

"Welcome back, Kaho!" a voice they quickly recognised as Eriol's came from ferther in.

Sakura hurried towards where she heard his call and flung herself around his neck in a warm greeting. "_Eriol-kun!_" she cried as she made contact.

The small sorcerer litterally jumped in surprise at her sudden contact with him and looked up at her with wide eyes. "_Sakura-san?_" at her smile, he recomposed himself and returned the gesture. "_My dear child, what ever are you doing here? You weren't due to show up for another few days!_"

Blinking confusedly at him, she finally smiled and said "_I'm sorry that I'm early._"

He chuckled in reply to her innocent politeness and shook his head. "_No, no, it's fine. I was just intending to go and colect you from the airport myslef. Please, treat my home as your own._"

"_Oh, ok._" she said happily, and then seemed to notice something. "_But... Eriol-kun, if you can't see the future anymore, how did you know we would be coming?_"

To this Eriol smiled, "_Though I do no longer know everything, it takes so long for time to change by the power of the heart alone that the memories I have from when I still could, guide me through all things without question._"

"_So, my spell didn't work?_" Sakura asked appologetically.

"_No, on the contrary it did, as I said, I was not expecting you for another few days..._"

"_But you were still expecting us._" she pointed out, to which he gave a sad nod.

"_So is the nature of dark magic..._" he then smiled at her. "_So, how long will you be staying with us?_"

"_Hoe! But we can't intrude like that!_" Sakura insisted.

"_Nonsence! You are the daughter of my other half! You are family to me, and I insist that you treat my home as if it were yours!_"

"_Ha-hai..._" she said, blushing. "_We were going to stay for four days unless something happens to Yuki._" she indicated, turning around to look at Yukito who stood patiently at the door.

In Yukito's eyes there shone through a troubled longing felt by Yue, though he smiled in greeting to the ancient spirit all the same.

Eriol smiled back for a moment, understanding locked in the puzzling maze that was his look, before turning to Sakura and smiling lovingly. "_I am very glad, I have missed you all greatly and have been longing for company..._"

With that said, Eriol called Nakuru in to lead Sakura and Yukito to their rooms. After the initial settleing in was complete, Sakura insisted in helping to prepare dinner in payment for letting them stay at the house. Nakuru shrugged and showed her the way down there, along with Kero who was inturested in anything involving food. Yukito on the other hand, found his feet had carried him back to Eriol, instead. The small sorcerer was waiting expectantly when he entered. "What is bothering you, Yue?" he asked, though his tone gave the impression he already knew.

With no reason not to, Yue drew himself forward within the psychi of his host. "Master... have I somehow failed you?" he asked, full of self-doubt.

"Now, Yue, what would ever give you that impression?"

"You didn't want me, Master!"

"Now when did I ever say that?"

"You replaced me, Master, with that one Ruby Moon."

"Yue... How many times must I expalin it to you? I am not Clow Reed. Clow Reed is dead. My name is Eriol."

"But Master, you are his reincarnation!"

"I am half of it, yes. But so is Fujitaka, who you live with!"

"It's not the same, he doesn't know me! Not like you do, Master!"

"I am not your master, Yue." Eriol stated firmly as he stood and walked away. But the memories of his last life's guardians caused him to stop and sigh. "Yue... Before Clow Reed died, quite some time before in fact, he had forseen the existances that were both myself and Fujitaka. He knew that the dark magic he himself posessed would be capable of splitting the soul, but not the magic or memories themselves. And seeing as I bear his power, not only would I face the same obsticals, but also my power would never work against Fujitaka."

"But what does that have to do with anything?" Yue demanded.

"Simply this: Though we were both his reincarnations, I had all his power while Fujutaka had nothing. You, Yue, as well as Cerberus, were left with Fujitaka because he was the part of Clow that needed you the most. And more then that, Clow knew Fujitaka was going to have Touya-san and Sakura-san, and he loked at them very much as his own children. He chose to give you to them because he wanted the very best protecting his family."

"I am... the best?" Yue asked, awed at being refered to as such.

Eriol smiled down at him. "Clow poored all his heart and soul into making you and Cerberus, Yue. That's why you surpass all other Guardians by so much. And now Sakura needs you to be there for her to protect her, as well as her family, until she comes into her true power. And even after she does, she needs your centuries of wisdom to help her live out the rest of her life. I have Clow's memories, I have the wisdom already. So I ask you as the last of Clow Reed to guard and protect my other half and his family."

Pride filled Yue at this moment like Eriol had never seen with his own eyes. Yue was the best of Guardians. Clow was intrusting his most precious family in Yue and Cerberus's care. Yue was important. "I will not let you down, Master." and with that Yue stood and went to go find his Mistress.

* * *

Nakuru stopped before the door to the kitchen. "_This is it, have fun!_" before she turned and continued on walking.

Kero zoomed around the corner into the kitchen before Sakura even got there. "_Hey! Nee-san! What's to eat?_"

"_Kobanwa, Kero-chan. Are you here to help?_" Kaho asked pleasently.

"_He's here to sneek snacks while we're making them..._" Sakura said as she came up to Kaho's side. "_Where is the aprons?_"

"_Right in the cupboard over there._" Kaho told her. "_Usually Eriol would be in helping me, but he said he has work to do tonight, so I guess it will just be us._"

That is when a noise from down the hall reached Kero's ears. "_Hey, Nee-chan, what's that?_"

"_What's what?_"

"_That music... it sounds distinctly like a video game._"

"_Oh, probably Nakuru managed to rope Spinel into playing with her again._" Kaho announced. Kero was at once floating out of the room to go and see what they were playing.

"_What are we going to make?_" Sakura asked.

"_I don't know. I'm not a very good cook._" Kaho admitted. "_What can you make?_"

"_I'm good at making pancakes..._" Sakura said, for lack of anything better to suggest.

"_Ok, you start on that, I'm pretty sure the mix is in that cupboard over there and the pans are in here. Hmmm... what can I make... Oh! I know! I can make rice!_" and so began the preperation for dinner...

* * *

"Oh, common Suppi! At least try and play!" Nakuru complained. "I'm whiping the walls with you!"

"Who is this 'Suppi' you keep talking to? There is no one here besides you and me." Spinel replied indignantly, mindlessly pressing the occasional button on the controller.

Kero chose that moment to fly up over Spinel. He hovered their and watched the two playing the game, and sure enough, Nakuru was kicking some serious butt. "Oh man, you suck." he informed the blue Sun Guardian.

"Thank you for the observation, Cerberus." Spinel growled out annoyed.

"Kero-chan's right, you know, you do suck." Nakuru informed 'helpfully' as she beat her oposite once again.

"I could do better then that with my eyes closed!" Kero braged.

"Really...?" Nakuru asked, intreagued. She shoved Spinel aside and pushed Kero down in his place. "Show me."

And thus it began, a bonding of beasts so diferent, yet so the same.

* * *

Never had the lonely mansion at the end of Reedington Drive seen such a party of people. Four Guardians and three sorcerers of varying levels of suprime power all sat before a table the prepared meal from the two young ladies. The meal was diverse in variaty and taste, and while Kaho sat proudly presenting the meal to those who wished to eat it, Sakura was flushed in embarassment. You see, the meal consisted of the following dishes: pancakes, rice, instant-ramen, a salad, grilled cheese sandwiches, fresh fruit strips, spagetti, chicken noodle soup, and omlettes.

Eriol sat there at the head of the table, with his hands folded before his face and grinning to the point of tears. Sakura saw the tears in his eyes and lowered her head in shame. "_I'm sorry it's no good, but--_"

"_No, no, Sakura-san! It's wonderful. It's beyond perfect, because you made it with your heart._" He said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "_I am just... unaccustomed to the family life is all. I am just very, very happy._"

The fact that they had made him so happy brought a smile and a blush to the faces of both the chefs. "_But Eriol-kun, you have a family..._" Sakura pointed out, indicating Kaho and his Guardians.

"_Yes,_" he agreed, taking her hand lovingly. "_But soon I hope that you will come to see me as family, too._" he told her, a longing in his voice.

Sakura looked a little surprised for a moment, before breaking out into one of her patented smiles. "_I would like that._"

"_Well, enough of such things! Let us eat!_" Eriol said, gesturing for everyone to help themselves.

The meal was entertaining, even with the odd assortment of choices; talk was in abundance with the variaty of partisipants present, and laughter rang and echoed off of every bare wall and shadowed corner the mansion had to offer. Even after the food was gone, they sat and talked and were merry until midnight had come and went. It wasn't until Sakura fell asleep at the table that it was admitted that all should probably go to bed. So after Yukito laid his Mistress down to sleep, he himself went and rested as well.

* * *

Living in the Li Clan, one tended to get up early. Each member of the family bathed or showered before begining the long prosess that was dressing for the day. For Syaoran the prosess was simple, for his pants he chose a simple, black, loose-fitting design that had elastic around the ankles. He chose one of his short-sleeved mandren style shirts that fastened simply up the front and lacked any design or distiguishing characteristics beyond the fact that it was green. From there, all he had left to do was pull a comb through his ear-length hair to remove any tangles, and sit and wait for the others to come out.

Sheifa was the next to be done, strictly on the fact that her hair was too short to do anything with. She was dressed today in a dress that on first glance seemed black, but in highlights was noticable as a very dark green. It was ankle length with a slit up to her knee on the left side that was just an inch or two off towards the front from being on the hem line. The sleeves came down just past the sholder and the collar veared to the right along the top of her chest. Trimmed in real gold and embroidered with a dragon on the chest and a phoenix on the skirt, she required little jewelry save for her earings and a few bracelettes on each wrist.

She smiled when she caught sight of her brother, who always had dressed down, and attempted to imagin what it must look like to everyone else to see him walking with his sisters. He noticed her smile and eyed her wearily before she came up and kissed him good morning on the cheek. "**How are you to ever impress your girlfriend if you allways look so plain?**" she whispered before straitening up once more. He made a face of malcontent at her teasing which caused her to giggle before turning away as Fuutie exited.

Fuutie chose to wear a traditional styled red cheongsam in pride of thier mother-country. A thick black trim went around the base of the neckline and swooped to the side to trail down the curves of her front until reaching her hips where it swirved over and vanished into the mid-thigh slit. The bottom of the dress, which came to the middle of her calfs, as well as the upper rim of the collar and the sleveless arms were all trimmed in a thin black cord tha was seperated from the rest of the dress by a fine golden line. The whole of the silk was finely embroidered with a cascade of elegant flowers in gold and blue that suited her nicely and accented her eyes.

Her shoulder length hair was pulled up into twin buns that were adorned with gold pheonix orniments that had red tastles hanging from them. Her earings were small golden flowers and on her right arm she had an armlet that looked like a dragon biting it's own tail. On each wrist she wore a thick bracelette with a pair of matching saphires imbedded into them, large enough to cover the back of her wrist. She greeted her sister with an almost arrogant smile for being able to pull off a better look, and then examined her brother and rolled her eyes at his complete lack of effort.

Feimei was next to exit, unconfined as always she left her hair long and loose, letting the silky smoth texture speak for itself. She chose on this day to wear a light blue silk cheongsam that only reached down to about mid thigh. Covering the silk was little butterflies embrordered in deeper blues and pinks. The buttons that held the mandren collar in place were small, silver flowers that had a shard of jade within the center of each to bring out her eyes. On each wrist she wore a number of fine silver bangles that jingled together like a song of bells.

Eying her sisters, she bore little surprise to see how decorated Fuutie was, nore how elegant Sheifa was, and took a good moment to size up whether her innocent charm or their mature beauty were more appealing this day, feature by feature. Once content that she was, though not the beautiful bloom among the dead thorns, at least not in any form of poor taste, she walked over to sit down. Upon rounding the corner, and spotting her brother slouched on the sofa however, Feimei's eyes crossed and she got a look on her face as if to imitate someone who was dead. "**Oh, what an embarrasment...**"

Fanren, last to exit, was comonly known as being fasionably late for everything in order to make the greatest entrence. Her waist length hair was up in one of china's traditional styles, bound and looped on top of her head, though from the front you could hardly even see the intricisies of the style. This was because she wore a hair-piece consisting of three chopsticks bound in _colour_ silk with strings of dimonds handing of the end. Where the three met there was an aray of silver and gold flowers, each finely molded by expert hands and embeded with jade and saphire. From two flowers that sat above her eyes dangled a chain that hung a small dimond tear in the middle of her forehead.

Her dress was made of a silvery white silk embrordered with gold thred flowers. The trim was a thick, pale green and the cording was gold. It buttoned once at her neck, but then opened to reveil a triangle of skin as the hem reached out to atatch to her sleves--which were short, just covering her shoulders--before returning to the center just at the point where her clevage began to show inorder to continue on being buttoned down the front to around the middle of her shin. The dress stretched further to her ankles with a slit up to her knees on each side. The other girls knew the dress at once as the one she spent all her money on last time they had visited Shanghai, but for the most part all they had on their mind was that she had managed to out-dress them once again.

As for Syaoran, he met her eyes with as much disgust as she to his. She turned to her sisters and indicated their brother with a point from her manacured thumb. "**Can't we leave him behind?**" she begged of them.

"**Unfortunately not. We are on this trip to shop for him most prominently.**" Sheifa reminded.

All four girls looked at their brother, dressed as any other nobody, and gave a unit sigh. "**Well, he could use the fasion sence...**" Fanren admited. The others gave a unanimous nod before, ignoring his look of horified refusal, eight hands grasped him and drug him out to start their shopping spree.

* * *

Sakura rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she came into the study where she felt Eriol's presence. He turned to the opening door with a smile. "_Goodmoring, Sakura-san! Did you sleep well?_" he asked, putting down his pen for a moment.

"_Hai._" she said, coming up to the side of his desk. "_Good morning. Am I interupting your work?_"

"_This?_" he indicated the paper. "_No, it's nothing urgent. I'm just rewriting some of Clow's older works on European Sorcery._" he explained, placing aside the sheet for him to return to it later. "_Is there something that you need?_"

"_No, I just woke up so I came down to say good morning to everyone._" Sakura said, a little surprised by his question.

"_Oh, I see._" he smiled warmly at her. "_Are you hungry? I was about to start breakfast soon. What would you like?_"

"_Anything is fine. Do you want me to help?_"

"_You don't need to. I can manage on my own._"

"_Are you sure?_"

"_Yes._" He said with a smile. "_It's Saturday today, so Nakuru should be in the living room watching cartoons. Why don't you go and join her?_"

"_Ok._" Sakura nodded and hurried out of the room.

Sakura gave a sigh of minor depression when she left the room at Eriol's shooing her off. She knew he meant no harm, and offence was probably the farthest thing from his intent, but to her it was like he didn't want her around or something. But never one to worry about such things for long, Sakura went in search of Nakuru like she had been told. It took her a little bit to locate the living room, partly because she didn't know which way to start at and partly because the house was so large. But her search was aided by the sound of Nakuru's voice singing along with what she could only supose was some sort of theme song.

Finally, after making her way into the living room, Sakura saw that the TV was sporting a trio of rather poorly drawn animal people. Sakura couldn't even tell what they were supposed to be! "Ohayo, Nakuru-san." she announced her presence.

The brunette turned and looked at the small girl and smiled, "Ohayo, kawaii Sakura-chan!" Nakuru greeted back.

"_What are you watching?_" she asked curiously, coming to sit on the sofa next to the teenager.

"Animaniacs." she informed helpfully.

"_Are those bunnies?_" Sakura asked.

"_I think they're puppies. Or maybe monkeys..._" the older one replied, scratching her head in embarrassed confusion.

"_Oh. What are their names?_"

"_The tall one's Yakko. The one in blue is Wakko, and the girl is their sister, Dot._"

"_Who's the big fat guy?_" Sakura asked, trying to understand what was going on. "_Why are they running from him? Isn't he a policeman? Isn't that what policemen wear?_"

A vein began to pop on the side of Nakuru's head as she forced a smile and explained, attempting to hear the TV over their conversation. "_He's a sicurity guard, he's trying to catch them cause they're always running all over the place._"

"_What does that say?_" she asked, pointing to a sign that the camera had panned to focus on.

"_Audition in progress._" she informed quickly.

"_Why is there an audition going on?_" was the innocent question she was met with next.

"_Cause they live at the place movies are made._" Nakuru replied, annoyance beginning to seap into her voice.

"_Hoe?? That mus be fun, don't you think? What is he saying?_"

"..."

* * *

"U-um..."

Eriol turned to the noise coming from the door that was cracked just enough for Sakura's head to fit through. "_Sakura-san?! Weren't you watching cartoons with Nakuru?_"

"_Well, I was, but..._" she looked minorly embarrassed. "_I couldn't understand any of it, and... and I think I made Nakuru-san mad at me for always asking her what was being said..._"

The minorly surprised look on Eriol's face melted away into a parental smile, like Fujitaka alwaysed used. "_I see. Nakuru is very smart and curious, but it's true she doesn't have the patience it takes to teach. Please don't think poorly of her, by the time breakfast is ready she'll have forgotten the whole thing. Yukito-san is probably in the garden, and Kaho is most likely still asleep. I think Spinel is in the library again..._"

"U-um..." Sakura squeeked out. Eriol fell silent and looked at her expectantly, waiting to hear what it was she had been wanting to say. "_A-are you sure you don't need any help?_"

Eriol looked at Sakura's almost pleeding green eyes as if to ponder something, before he ventured to ask, "_Do you __want__ to help?_" the idea was, admitably, rather new to him. Spinel found it a waist of his time to try and cook, Naruku was too lazy most of the time to learn, and Kaho had anounced herself a disaster in the kitchen back when they first met. Eriol had simply gotten used to doing it all himself, using spell work to make up the extra hands he lacked on his own acord.

And yet Sakura nodded, blushing, at his question, and hurried over to pull out an appron. Unable to help himself, Eriol marvled, and not for the first time since Sakura-tachi's arival the night before, at this new sensation known as 'family'. He cursed himself silently as envy and jealousy overcame him at the thought that his other half knew nothing but this feeling. Sometimes Eriol really did hate Clow, leaving him with all of this while the other got away with living the life of a normal person.

"_Eriol-kun?_" the voice was filled with curiosity, and a little annoyance, that dragged the enigma back to reality.

"_I'm sorry, what was that, Sakura-san?_" he asked with a smile, as per usual.

"_I asked what you would like me to do?_"

"_Oh, yes, of course!_" Eriol stepped from his stool and over to a cupboard on the far side of the room. From there he pulled out a mixing bowl and turned once more to Sakura with a smile. "_Have you ever made bakingpowder biskets before?_"

"_No..._" Sakura replied, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes were fixed solidly on Eriol's, she had seen the ancient shadow cross through the stormy gaze like a cold, hollow wind: too old to feel and too tired to care. It was so out of place on his babyish face to find the eyes of the dead that she couldn't repress the soft shiver that ran up her spine.

If Eriol had seen the shudder, he did a wonderful job of hiding it, for all he did was wander up to the table and say, "_I'll show you, then._" After gathering the engredients for her and explaining how to do everything, she set off to work and he returned to preparing the dish he had been working on before. At one point Nakuru came in to find out what they would be eating, and Kaho came by twice to get a shopping list from Eriol, and Kero had to be shunted out of the kitchen repeatedly to keep away from the snacks. But despite it all, the two sets of small hands worked with surprising efficiency, being done the meal before the cartoons were over, which raised it's fair share of complaints from the one watching them when called away to eat.

Breakfast as a whole was uneventful. The guardians ate three times the amount of food the humans did, and Kaho misplaced her fork for a few minutes, but as a whole, and with everything that could happen among such a group, it went smoothly. It was during the time that Nakuru was trying to outrace Yukito and Kero in the cleaning up of the last few bits of food that were left over that Kaho got to her feet. "_I'll go and get the groceries now!_"

Yukito abandoned their game and stood as well. "_I'll go with you._"

"_You don't need to..._" she said.

But Yukito shook his head, "_I still have to replace those eggs that I caused you to drop._"

"_Alright, if you insist..._" Kaho then paused and began digging in her purse. "_Now where is it..._"

"_If you're looking for the shopping list, it's upstairs on your bedside table._" Eriol informed, not looking up from his clearing the table.

"Oh... heheh!" and with that Kaho hurried up the stairs.

Sakura looked blankly at Eriol for a second as she piled the plates that she had gathered on top of his. "_Does Mizuki-sensie often leave her shopping lists there?_"

"_Not particularly._" Eriol said, off hand.

"_Hoe? Then how did you know that that's where it was?_" Sakura asked, getting more confused.

"_Because when she came in last time to find the list, she didn't have her earrings on, but she does now._" He explained as if it was no big deal.

"_And that is where she keeps her earrings?_" Sakura asked, starting to get the jist of the logic behind everything. Eriol only reply was a nod. "_Hoe! You're really good at noticing things, Eriol-kun! I didn't even know she wasn't wearing her earrings from before!_"

Innocent as the praise was, it still brought a flush to Eriol's pail cheeks that he was found out in his silent observations and admirations for the young teacher. Though he was rather positive that Sakura was quite clueless when it came to the reason for his studying the woman, he still wasn't too sure how she would react when she found out and so the conversation being on such topics put him on edge. The last person he wanted to think badly of him was Sakura.

As they walked into the kitchen to clean the dishes, Eriol looked back over his shoulder to talk to Sakura. "_So, what are you wanting to do today?_"

"_Well, I supose I ought to go and get my stuff..._" Sakura replied thoughtfully.

"_That should only take a day to get done, why not wait until tomorrow to do that?_" Eriol pressed. "_We were going to go on a trip today out to the country, I have some business to atend to and it's always good to get Spinel out of the house. Why don't you come with us? It would be a great opertunity for you to do a bit of sight seeing, and it's been ages since Yue and Cerberus have been out there._"

"_Well, if you're sure, then I guess it's ok..._"

* * *

"**Oh god, I am NOT going in there!**" insisted Feimei as they stood outside an old department store that looked like it hadn't had a customer in nearly a decade. The sign above the door read Purge and Dowse, Ltd.

Fuutie examined the dirty crumbling red brik and sighed "**Well, these English folk sure don't take very good care of their magical enviroment...**"

"**It doesn't matter. Look, it says it's closed, we can't go in anyway.**" Sheifa pointed out and the five Li siblings continued on walking.

* * *

Kaho and Yuki returned to the lonely mansion some fourty-five minutes after their departing, arms laden with produce. Every hand was recruited to help with the inloading of the groceries, and as they worked, Eriol informed everyone of the plans he and Sakura had agreed on. Seeing as no one present had the disposition to argue, as soon as the work was completed, everyone went to go get ready. As the party stepped out to the vehicle, Eriol placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder. "_May I sit next to you for the ride, Sakura-san?_"

"_Of course! It's your car, you can sit wherever you want..._" Sakura pointed out.

"_Thank you, I was hoping I could talk with you about what you are to be expecting during this year's school session._" Eriol explained his resonings over Nakuru's cry of "Shotgun!".

So with Nakuru having happily taken her place in the front pasenger's seat, and Kaho doing the duty of driving, that left Sakura to sit in the back between Yukito and Eriol. Spinel and Kero enjoyed their freedom, floating aimlessly around in the protection of the automobile, and watching out the windows at other cars that drove by. The conversation varried and wondered for a while before Eriol finally drew the young card mistress's attention to the subjects he was wanting her attention on.

"_Magic, or at least Sorcery, is made up of several components that work together. The easiest of these, the one you've had the most experiance with, is called 'alignment'. A sorcerer's alignment is traditionally either sun or moon. The occasional sorcerer, such as Clow Reed, has a secondary alignment. For myself, my primary alignment is sun with a secondary of moon. You on the otherhand, are quite special. Your primary alignment is mostly unheard of, as it being that of the stars, with secondary and tirchiary alignments as sun and moon respectively. The wider spectrum of alignments that a sorcerer has, the greater their power becomes._

"_Another one that you will most likely hear a lot about in your training this year is 'atrobutes'. An atrobute is the element that the sorcerer is most inclined to cast. There are six atrobutes in the known cycle, and those are, in no particular order of power: fire, wind, water, earth, wood, and thunder. Sun and moon split those atrobutes equally, with fire, earth, and thunder under sun, and wind, water, and wood under moon._"

"_Like the cards..._" Sakura said softly, pulling them out. "_I used Windy and Wood on Yue, and he said that they were both under him..._"

"_Yes, Clow used the basis of atrobutes in creating the cards. Other things effect magic as well, though not as seriously as alignment and atrobute._"

"_Other things? Like what?_"

"_Well, what affilliation you have refers to the type of spell work you use, like a class... The Li Clan is traditionally affiliated with a branch of eastern magic. There are other branches, each with it's own set of slightly different circles and spells, but all eastern magic has the same bace to it's style. That bace is known as an affiliation. In England, here, and when you get to Hogwarts, the affilliation that they will be teaching will be western magic. Over in America, they learn the new-world magic affilliation, in Africa they use more of the ancient affiliation... are you getting the idea?_"

"_Sort of..._"

"_Also, something that can not be changed no matter how much you train, something that all sorcerers are born with, is the aspect of their magic. This means whether their power will be light or dark. I am dark, and you are light. It has little effect on how the spells are cast, the effect is more in the result of the magic and what the caster can do with it. I can never learn to block out vissions, or any magic for that matter, because of the dark aspect in my casting. You, on the other hand, are a light aspect, and so sheilding yourself from such things will come quite easily and naturally._"

His lecture continued as such for the rest of the drive.

* * *

"**Oh gods, I hope there's no one here that may recognize us…**" grumbled Fuutie, with a hand over her face to try and hide it.

"**You're the one who wanted to come along!**" reminded Shiefa.

"**That was when I thought that we were going on a shopping trip, not stand around an old telephone booth and wait for you to figure it out…**" Fuutie complained, leaning against the metal strip of the corner and crossing her arms impatiently.

Syaoran sat over by the others, Feimei and Fanren had decided to spend their time sipping chocolate mochas while watching the eldest two across the street. Syaoran, who didn't like anything that this place had to offer save for maybe chocolate milk, which he would not be caught dead drinking ever again now that he was no longer a little kid, just sat grumpily between the twins, slouched low and glaring at the lack of progress his sisters were achieving.

"**How much longer is it going to take, do you think?**" Feimei asked her older twin.

"**That's hard to say, with the number of folded magic spots in the city… it's almost as bad as Hong Kong…**" Fanren said.

"**But I want to get to shopping!!**" whined the youngest Li sister.

"**Maybe he'll know where to go?**" Syaoran said, indicating a passing man who had a stronger aura then most. "**One of you go ask.**"

"**But… we don't know him!**" whined Feimei. "**Why don't you ask?**" she suggested.

"**Because I'm number one son and I say that you'll do it.**" he replied, pulling rank to get out of doing something he didn't want to do.

Grumbling, the youngest Li girl got to her feet and went to the man that had almost gone out of sight. "E-excuse me… Excuse me, sir? Sir?" she finally got his attention after chasing him half ways down the block. "Sorry to bother you, but I'm from out of town and I was wondering if you could direct me as to the location of Daigon Alley?"

At first the man looked too startled to reply, but slowly he took in the soft Asian skin and the nicely proportioned body that fit under rich embroidered blue silk. And smiled at the teen. "Of course, I'll take you there myself…"

"Really? How sweet of you. Just a minute please, let me go get the others!" and with that she turned and hurried off, long brown hair bouncing around her shoulders as she ran.

The wizard eyed the lot of them happily. Four beautiful teenagers and some little kid that didn't matter at all, going with him to the Leaky Cauldron? Oh, was he going to have fun with this…

* * *

Ok, due to the insane length this chapter ended up being, I decided to cut it in half, rather then make you wait any longer for me to finish the other part of it. So this is just part 1 of For Love, War, and Stores, and part two should be up... sometime in the near future hopefully. So, what will happen in the next chapter? Well, there will be a short returning of the adults from the Order of the Pheonix, you'll get to see the Li family's pervert policy, and hopefully we'll all have fun with Sakura and Syaoran's running around Daigon Alley. Well, that's it for now, and remember everyone, be sure to review! Critiques are loved, flames are tollerated, and all other coments are insperation!

Shade and Sweet Water!

Key


	7. For Love, War, and Stores Part 2

Just cause it's been a while, please remember:

"**This is being said in Chinese**"

"_And this is being said in Japanese_"

"And this is being said in English."

* * *

Chapter 5: For Love, War, and Stores Part 2

Sakura climbed out of the car and ran to look at the large rock structure. "_Wow! I saw pictures of this place!_" she admitted, turning back to look at Eriol. By the way everyone else was just standing back watching her, she blushed, supposing that she had done something wrong.

"_It's been nearly a century since I've been here..._" Kero said, as he floated up by her side.

"_Hoe! Kero-chan and Yue have been here before?_" Sakura asked, taking her Sun Guardian within her hands and turning to look at Yukito for confirmation.

The silver haired young man nodded, and Eriol smiled in his paternal way. "_Yue and Cerberus often came here with Clow Reed, for this is a very important place for the Sorcerers of the world._"

"_It is??_" Sakura asked, her sea-green eyes wide with awe. "_Hoe..._"

"_Yes,_" Kaho said, taking up her position as teacher. "_This is Stone Henge, though it has gone by several other names in the past, most of which are forgotten to all but the most ancient of Guardians._"

"_Guardians...? Like Kero-chan, and Yue, and Nakuru-san and Spinel-san?_"

"_Not... exactly like them, but yes. There are hundreds of Guardians around the world, bound to the most ancient and powerful of Sorcery Clans._"

"_Hoe..._" Sakura mumbled in awe, "_Will I meet any of them in Hogwarts?_"

"_Perhaps. It depends on the families attending and whether they feel it necessary to send the Guardians with the children, or keep them at home with themselves._" Eriol explained.  
"_Ano... why would the Guardians know the names of this place?_"

To this, everyone just smiled knowingly. "_I am very glad you asked that, Sakura-san._" Eriol began, taking her hand in his and leading her into the heart of the Henge's circle. "_You see, many Sorcerers believe that this is the birthplace of our people._"

"_Nani?!_" Sakura cried, looking around in total shock.

"_Yes, they say that eons ago, our ancestors conducted some sort of ceremony on this very spot and gave birth to the very first of the Sorcerers. It is tradition that whenever a new magic is created, it is drawn here in the founder's blood. Right back to the simplistic first circle of a pentagram, every circle of our people can be seen here if you extract the power to read them._"

"_Pentagram? But why that one first? Clow Reed's magic circle, and mine... they're much more different then that..._" Sakura pointed out.

"_Well, yes. That is the product of millennia of research, though. Symbols and characters were found that held power. These symbols are called runes. When placing them correctly within a circle's design, the caster can call upon the power held within them and aid in the spells success._"

"_Well, that makes sense for Clow Reed, but what about me? I didn't know about any of that!_" Sakura insisted.

"_That, my dear, has to do with the fact that runes are now rather common place and show up in symbolism everywhere. Not to mention that you have already become accustomed to the look of my pers--er, that is... Clow Reed's personal circle. You merely subconsciously mimicked his design._"

Sakura thought about all of this for a long moment. She then turned to Eriol and asked, "_So, I have to draw my circle on the ground in blood??_"

"_Yes, quite._"

"_B-but how am I going to do that? I can't even draw circles!!_" she exclaimed, making a fast oval-ish motion with her finger in the air.

Eriol pondered this for a moment, before turning his attentions to Kaho when she made a noise to signal her wish to add something. "_Well, as much as Sakura-chan needs to learn how to draw it free-hand, perhaps just this once Spinal and Kero-chan could help her?_"

Eriol conferred, "_Smart idea, indeed. Sakura-san, stand right here, and then focus on your magic, as if you were to call your staff._"

"_Hoe..._" she whined, but did as she was told. She stayed put, holding her magic circle while Kero and Spinel zipped around and drew out the pattern in the dirt. Once they had completed this task, Eriol pricked one of Sakura's fingers with a needle and had her trace out the design over the lines drawn by the two small feline Guardians.

* * *

"Well," the wizard in his early forties stated to the five Asian foreigners "here we are..."

They looked at the run down little pub with varying levels of distaste, horror, and boredom. "And where exactly is here?" the young heir questioned, his eternal scowl shifting slightly to show the minor hints and traces of a look that was to say 'oh bother'.

"The Leaky Cauldron!" He announced proudly, placing a hand on the nearest sister, Fanren's, elbow to lead them in. "Entry way to Daigon Alley, it is!"

While Fanren dealt with a way to politely tell this British wizard to keep his hands the hell off of her, Syaoran scanned the people around. They seemed not to notice the building being there, so he assumed that it must be inside of a magical fold, only visible to those who had magic, or perhaps only to those who knew about it.

The Li siblings followed the older wizard into the pub all the same and shared a simultaneous reaction in putting their hands to their faces at the overwhelming grunge that met them inside. Several of the siblings had to hold back the desire to cough up a lung at the thick smoky air.

"**These English sort, they're very dirty, aren't they?**" Fuutie said conversationally to her siblings.

"**Horrid, disgusting place...**" Feimei agreed.

"**About... a dozen customers, looks like rooms upstairs.**" Sheifa observed.

"**Who would eat in such a dump? They probably have rats and all sorts of other types of vermin...**" Syaoran turned up his lip.

"**Oh, come off it.**" Fanren defended slightly. "**Not all of China's shops are perfect either.**"

"**It is true that many of the more ancient shops are a little... rickety,**" Fuutie aloud, as she pulled a silk handkerchief from her pocket and wiped it along a nearby counter. "**But even the shabbiest of shops still maintain their cleanliness.**" she finished, showing them the soft silk that now had a blotch of brown on it from the dust and grime build up.

They were too busy with their own inter-squabbling to pay any mind to the wizard, however, as he stepped aside to talk to the owner about a room for the evening. In fact, the five siblings continued to bicker among themselves until they finally realized that the wizard was attempting to gain their attention for the third or fourth time.

"Come along ladies, this way, that's right, all of you." he called to them from where he stood at the base of the rickety looking stairwell as they maneuvered themselves through the tables to where the man stood. "Right up here, ladies..." he said, reaching out and grabbing hold of the elbow of the girl closest to push her up the narrow passage.

His efforts were swatted by an iron grip and a pair of honey eyes glaring up at him. "And just WHAT do you think you're doing, touching my sister like that?"demanded the young heir. "Get your filthy hands off of her!"

"Go away, kid, you bug me." He replied, pulling his wand and casting a fast spell to knock Syaoran off his feet and into a nearby table.

This simplest of mistakes put a whole new momentum into play where the wizard found himself de-wanded and sent flying across the room by the four Asian beauties dressed in garb fit for queens.

"Hey, toots!" one large and burly wizard called as he slapped a hand down on the elegant Fanren's shoulder. "You just cost me my drink, I think you should apologize!"

Syaoran was in the middle of dusting himself off from his little mishap with magic when he looked up at the stranger who held his second to youngest sister's shoulder. He cocked an eyebrow and shook his head, muttering to himself about how 'he shouldn't have said that', as he stepped over to the owner and politely asked for directions to Daigon Alley.

Elsewhere in the room, the other occupants of the bar stood, anticipating a fight as the elder twin snapped her head around. The wizard had to hold himself from jumping back in surprise as the warm green of her eyes flashed to the cold heartlessness of jade. "What did you just call me?" she demanded, her voice dripping with venom.

The wizard stood frozen, as if encased by the jade that her eyes reflected, unable to make his mouth work to give a suitable answer before her fist met his jaw. And that was it, a trigger like none other to start the fight. Sheifa grabbed an available mop that had been innocently slopping the floor with water and took an advantage point atop a table. She sat with her chosen weapon ready, until she was met by a flurry of sparks, to which she quickly cartwheeled her way over to the adjacent table and quickly lifted a serving tray to deflect the spells and even reflected a few back at their casters.

This gave the people a smart enough warning to discard their apparently useless wands and regress back to the much more primitive way of just slugging your opponent. Sheifa then began to use the mop as if it were a staff, swinging it and jabbing it, giving her the advantage of reach over those who would otherwise overpower her. But she did not ever let down the guard of the serving platter either, holding onto one handle and letting it lay across her arm like a shield.

Fuutie had managed to obtain two glass mugs, and had broken them in such a way that they became fighting knuckles for her, as she rashly plowed her way with jabs and kicks through the throng of people. Fanren also took the initiative and charged her opponent, though her style was much different, relying on momentum to carry her through from one opponent to the next, as if in some elaborate ballet.

Feimei fought much like her twin, with spins and a strategy relying heavily on momentum, but as Fanren's relied on her own personal momentum, Feimei's was more reliant on her opponents, in a duck, dodge, and redirect approach to battle. Syaoran, for his part, sat atop the bar's counter and massaged his sore temples as he watched the progression of the fight with something mildly akin to interest.

At one point, Sheifa's mop was broken in half, and she sent the two pieces along to Fanren who used them much like schema sticks, and was left to just fight by whipping the large metal serving tray around until her polearm-like weapon was replaced by Syaoran's grabbing a nearby broom for her.

The fight, for all the damage it caused, didn't last much longer then ten minutes or so, before the girls found themselves victorious due to a lifetime of heavy training. The only real problem at hand was Fanren's refusal to stop hitting one poor witch who had pulled her hair. But after the other three sisters, as well as Syaoran stepped in, she let the fact drop. Well, at least physically, she still grumbled and whined about how that wench had ruined her hairstyle.

Syaoran, however, proved himself capable once more of pulling rank by insisting that they leave this filthy place because it was giving him a headache. So, obediently, the four girls followed their little brother out into the back cellar where he had obtained confirmation that the shopping district was located.

"**You know...**" Sheifa pointed out as they walked through the opening that was left in the wall by the bricks moving aside. "**Leaving that pub isn't going to make your headache go away...**"

"**What are you talking about? Of course it will! I didn't start getting a headache until we were in there!**" Syaoran objected.

To this Fuutie just shook her head. "**It doesn't work like that, cub. Wizards aren't like us Sorcerers, when they get together in packs, their auras blend together so badly that it just becomes a total mess. Don't you remember that from your readings?**"

Syaoran attempted to think about it, but the headache was getting worse now that they were out in the hordes of witches and wizards. Feimei placed a cooling hand onto his hair and spoke softly. "**Try not to put too much thought into it, you're headache's coming from concentrating too much. They're absolutely everywhere, and you're just so busy trying to identify one from the next, you can hardly even think straight, can you?**"

"**If he can't think straight, then how is he going to go to school?**" Fanren asked innocently enough, while she distracted herself in the merchandise of a nearby street vendor.

But though her words were not meant to bring harm or offense, the meaning behind them ran true enough, and brought an even darker scowl to the golden eyed boy. Feimei began massaging her younger brother's scalp, and said as comfortingly as she could. "**Just try and block it out, dear.**"

"**I am trying... It just hurts more!**" he whined slightly, pulling away from her fingers.

At Feimei's hurt pout, Sheifa placed an arm around her shoulder. "**It's alright, poor little Xiao Lang just can't concentrate enough to do something like that right now.**"

Feimei just responded with a nod as Fuutie stepped up to the place of leader. "**We had best hurry up and get the shopping done with, then.**"

Fanren cocked her head to the side for a moment's thought. "**But... wouldn't it be better to drag the shopping trip out? I mean, he has to live in this once he starts school, right? He needs to get used to it.**"

"**What would probably be best is if we do the shopping in segments, and let Xiao Lang rest in the middle.**" Sheifa pointed out.

"**Alright, it's settled then. Let's go!**" Fuutie said, then looked around. "**Where's Xiao Lang?**"

* * *

During their drive back to London, Eriol retained his usual place in the front passenger seat, leaving Nakuru to sit in the back with Sakura and Yukito. This meant that the drive home was filled with much more bickering, because no one could decide who should sit where. Yue was demanding within Yukito to keep Sakura away from the 'thieving impostor', but to have the two Moon Guardians sit side by side was just begging for disaster, for it was in their very nature to battle.

Nakuru's jealous, taunting nature led to her wanting to sit in the middle, with Sakura behind Eriol and Yukito barricaded from them both. But Eriol saw at once that this was a bad idea, and told her plainly that the answer was no. This lead to only one other solution, to have Sakura sit in the middle and put up with the two Moon Guardians bickering over her for the whole of the ride home.

As Eriol sat and listened to Yukito insist that it was *his* Kinomoto family, he tried his best to hold in the laughter. Leaning over to the side, he spoke to Kaho in a tone that betrayed his amusement in the situation at hand. "I doubt it would really do to threaten at this point to turn the vehicle around and go back, would it...?"

"Indeed, I doubt it would..." Kaho replied with a smile of mirth of her own.

Eriol grew quiet for a moment, however, as he appeared to be pondering something. "Though, what else is there that fathers say to the children on road trips?"

The teacher pondered this question herself for some time. "Well, they reply to the children's questions of 'are we there yet'..."

"But they have not yet asked that. How can I tell them 'no' for something that has not yet been asked?" he inquired.

"Quite." Kaho agreed, "Well, I suppose your primary option then is to accept that you have better children than most of the world."

"Yes... I believe I may feel pride in that." Eriol admitted with a nod.

"I would dare to think you should." Kaho insisted. Then, unable to help it any longer, the 'parents' of this little family shared a good hearty laugh.

* * *

It had taken the Li sisters a good ten minutes to locate their more-grumpy than usual charge. He had wandered on ahead, shoving several people out of his way, as he marched impatiently onward, determined to get this all over with as fast as he could.

When they located him, he was demanding to know where it is they change over their money into local currency. Though the question was intelligent enough, his headache and consequential lack of concentration left him rudely insulting the unhelpful shop owners in a garbled mixture of three different dialects of Chinese, as well as Japanese.

Fanren, always one who easily got along with others, jumped in to stop any problems that may be arising. "Hi, hello... Yes... please forgive my little brother, he's tired and has had a very long morning. He tends to forget at times that not everyone can speak ten different languages..."

The owner of this particular shop, a witch that had to be in her eighties, eyed the girl in yellow suspiciously, as three others did their best to drag the still scowling boy away. The girl had long soft looking brown hair and very attractive features that showed several hints at makeup placed to look like she wasn't wearing any.

The owner could tell upon looking at the girl that she was of the material sort, one who would buy before thinking, and pay much more than what the object may be worth. She smiled at the girl, revealing poorly kept crooked teeth. "Why of course, my dear, such a small child such as himself, he must be going to Hogwarts, yes?"

"Yes, we're here doing his school shopping, he's going into his first year." Fanren said politely, smiling back, relief washing over her that they had managed once again to avoid a conflict.

"First year, you say? Well, let me show you this, this is a sneekascope, and it's a must have for all first years!" the witch insisted, "And because you're such a sweet little girl, I'll sell it to you for only half it's worth!"

"Wow, really?" Fanren's eyes lit up, but then dulled again, "But it's not on his list..."

"Oh, well no, of course not!" the old woman thought quickly, "But that list is only for what you need in class, it's got nothing for what's going on the rest of the year!"

"Oh..." Fanren had to admit that what the woman was saying did seem to ring some note of truth. "Ok, I'll take it! Do you take yuan?"

"Do I take what?" the woman asked, face jumping to confusion and voice taking on a dead-panned tone.

"Yuan. Chinese currency. We haven't had a chance to change over our money since we got to London."

The woman looked at the brunette girl dressed in yellow for a moment, then pointed farther on up the street. "You want Gringotts. That's the bank. Change all your money there. Then be sure to come back so we can continue our little conversation, yes?"

Fanren really didn't pay any further attention to the woman who ran the vending booth, she just turned back to her sisters and relayed the information. "**The bank's this way.**" and as easy as that, the five siblings wandered off.

"**Well, this is it!**" Fanren announced, standing proudly before the towering marble building.

"**Oh, gee, what gave that away?**" Fuutie asked, rolling her eyes.

"**The sign up there says so.**" Fanren replied with a snicker.

"**Can we just hurry this up? My head's hurting so bad that the building looks crooked!**" Syaoran complained.

"**Um... You di? The building IS crooked...**" Sheifa pointed out in what she could only hope was a comforting manor.

"**Jeez, honestly? These wizarding folk need to learn how to maintain their buildings...**" Syaoran complained, marching past the tackily dressed guard goblin and through the front doors.

As his sisters followed, Feimei took a moment to examine the rhyme engraved onto one of the doors. "**Not a very friendly welcoming, is it? They must do terribly during tourist season...**"

"Hey, you!" Fuutie called to a nearby goblin as it scurried past with a pile of papers. "Yeah, you. Where's the debit machine?"

"Debit...?" the small creature repeated, looking at the eldest Li.

"Yeah, you know... MasterCard, Visa..." Feimei said, coming to Fuutie's side and pulling out one of her many pieces of plastic.

"My lord, you really don't know what we're talking about, do you?" Sheifa let her jaw drop at that one.

"You really need to get out more, buddy..." Fanren pointed out, crossing her arms and looking annoyed.

"**And I thought Visa was accepted everywhere...**" Feimei pouted, looking at the card she had in her hand.

"**No worries, I'm sure they're just behind the times, I mean look at what he's wearing...**" Sheifa comforted, placing a hand around her youngest sister's shoulders.

"**Who cares about that, we've got cash on us!**" Syaoran stated, already standing before a near-by teller.

"**You di's right. We can just hit a debit machine tomorrow before we come in and everything will be cool.**" Sheifa agreed, slipping over to where the littlest Li stood. Feimei followed, as there seemed to be no other intelligent thing to do at the moment, and the others followed.

Together they poured out all of their money onto the counter as Syaoran looked up at the goblin with a 'what are you gonna do about it' sort of look. Grumbling the magical creature shifted through all the change with it's long fingers, then turned and opened a drawer behind him. He turned around once more with 10 gallions, 7 sickles, and 4 knuts.

Fuutie placed her hand over the stack of gallions and waved the others back. "We'll just take these." the goblin nodded, counted out what he was owed of the yuan, and then carried it off. The girls took their money and left.

"**So, where to?**" Syaoran asked as they stepped out of the bank, not really caring about their answer and mostly predicting them already.

"**The clothing store.**" Fuutie answered at once.

"**Yes, definitely the clothing store.**" Fanren agreed. Syaoran blinked when it wasn't immediately followed by Feimei's voice insisting.

"**I want to go and check out what kind of books they have here. I'm fascinated with the prospect of European magic, and wizardry at that. It must have such depths of change from our own magic...**" Sheifa gushed to no one's great surprise.

"**I'd... rather like to know what wand You di will end up with.**" Feimei piped up.

There were a few nods of agreement, but the vote was still quite split. "**So... books, clothes, or wand?**"

"**Oh, no! Not books! We don't have any car, and I am not going to be seen carrying around a large pile of books all over London!**" Fanren insisted.

"**She's right, I don't want to carry all those heavy books everywhere!**" Feimei agreed.

"**Point taken, we'll do the books tomorrow when we can bring along a vehicle.**" Sheifa gave in.

"**So then, wand or clothes?**" Fuutie asked, looking around for a vote.

"**We already passed the clothing store, so lets continue onward to find the wands then come back for his robes.**" Sheifa thought logically.

When no one objected with the strategist's plan, Syaoran turned and continued to push his way further up the alley. As it turned out, the wand shop was a narrow, shabby building with golden letters above the door indicating the company—Olivander's—what they did—make wands—and when they supposedly came into business.

It was this third bit of information that the Li family looked at the longest, however. "382 BC?" Feimei pondered, looking at the sign with an air of innocence. "**That was a long time ago...**"

"**Two-thousand three-hundred and seventy-seven years ago.**" Fuutie stated.

"**Were wands even in existence that long ago?**" Feimei asked anyone who may know the answer.

"**Seventy-eight.**" Sheifa announced in the background.

"**What?**" Fuutie asked, turning to the second of the Lis to verify that she was indeed being corrected.

"**Was the Li family even in existence back then?**" Feimei continued to ask, ignoring the argument of exactly how many years ago it was and just being happy to leave it as old.

"**Two-thousand three-hundred and seventy-eight; going from a positive to a negative, the zero becomes a significant number in the equation and must therefore be counted.**" Sheifa explained to the eldest.

"**Of course we were around back then! The Li Clan is one of the oldest in China! We are superior to these British fools, we even pre-date recordable history!**" Fanren boasted.

"**Besides,**" added Syaoran who was staring at the number with minor boredom, "**It's not like the shop or this alley were here back then. They probably just sneak the number back one every few years for notariety sake.**"

With that, Syaoran entered the wand shop, followed closely by his sisters. "**It looks like a library...**" muttered one of the twins.

"**It doesn't smell much like one though...**" commented the other.

Syaoran's honey eyes skimmed the shop carefully, the ancient sources of magic were much more pronounced in this dusty old building than out in the crowded streets. He took this moment to actually stop and analyze the magical fluctuations. They appeared to be categorized into segments, which also helped him to focus more clearly on them.

He felt very clearly the purity of the mother phoenix's fire, the burning spirit of righteousness and the immortal spirit of maternity and love. The fire was a deadly element, when out of control it could devastate and destroy, but it also served to heal and cleanse away evil for a new start, refreshed so that it could grow back stronger than before.

He felt, also, the presence of fast moving water. Cool and soothing to the touch, never exerting itself over hard ground, always taking the easy path, but also always going. Its flow could almost whisk him away, throw him against the rocks, and rake him against it's bed. It chose it's path and moved forward, ever-flowing, ever-patient. It would erode away slowly at it's opponent until it dug itself to the heart.

The dragon's wind, Syaoran's own element, was free and unconfined. Flowing higher than any mountain, and settled below every ant, it was everywhere. Grand and strong, and a giver of life, it was the power of yang, father of the elements. Capable of being either a playful breeze or a deadly tornado, all life was subjugated to it's will.

And then, of course, the all encompassing, peaceful wood. Ancient and wise, patient and loving, everything that a mother could possibly be. The perfect teacher, the perfect learner, the essence that made up the soul of sorcery. Calm and calculating, awaiting the decisions of others and acting on them accordingly.

"**Their missing two...**" Syaoran mumbled, more to himself then his sisters. "**Earth and thunder...**"

"**You're out of luck, Fanren...**" teased Sheifa, who was rewarded with a sticking out of Fanren's tongue.

They were halted from any further chance of banter by the enterance of an old man with eyes like fogged ice. He eyed the large group of five who stood and waited to be served. Each one radiated their own distinctive aura of power and confidence that brought a look to the old man's face that only those who were old and omniscient could achieve.

"Welcome, welcome children. I am Mr. Olivander. How many wands can I provide you with this fine day?" he asked, looking from one to the next.

"Just one." Fuutie replied, indicating her little brother.

"Ah, yes... Hogwarts bound, I suppose? Lucky boy indeed, never has that fine old school seen such a great Headmaster..."

Syaoran ignored his speech and turned to Feimei, "**See? I told you the sign was phony. There's no way the shop could have stayed under one family's management for nearly two and a half millennia.**"

"**Maybe there was a corporate take over?**" Feimei pondered.

"**Or maybe they changed the name of the store when the family name changed...**" Fanren suggested.

"**But that wouldn't really be being around for all that time, would it?**" Fuutie pointed out.

Not understanding the quarrelling between the Asian family, Mr. Olivander cleared his throat. Politely the five siblings looked at him. "May I, ah, ask what circle you use, Mr..."

"Li. He uses the Clow circle." Fuutie sniffed.

"Ah now, not many a customer comes in who follows Clow Reed's discipline." Olivander said, indicating that the family should follow him into a room in the back. This, like the one prior, was lined with shelves, stacked with boxes containing wands, but unlike the other room, this was much smaller, and on the end of each box a circle was drawn.

"Well, not everyone is a direct descendant, now are they?" Fuutie bragged, and the other three sisters looked duly haughty, Syaoran however just seemed to sulk in annoyance at the reminder.

"Let's see, let's see... Clow circle... Ah, here we are!" Mr. Olivander muttered to himself, pulling off the shelf only four separate boxes. "This is all I have with the Clow circle on it. Try this one: birch at 9 ¾ inch, has a white feather core said to be the feather of Clow's own Moon Guardian, Yue."

Syaoran took it and examined it for a moment, before shaking his head and handing it back.

"Then how about this: 12 inches exactly, made of hawthorn with a core of a mermaid spine?"

Syaoran didn't even take a hold of it before shaking his head, "I don't think that one is for me." he informed.

Mr. Olivander was about to present the next wand when a clanging bell was heard all throughout the shop. "Well, here are the other two, please forgive me, I must see to these customers." and with that he hurried back to the front of his shop.

Once he was gone, Syaoran examined the other two in his own time. One was long and thin, unusually so, in fact. It too had the distinctive energy of the flame to it. He easily imagined Fuutie using something like this one, but for Syaoran himself, it was no good.

The other, in contrast, was short and a little on the thick side. It held the grounding solid presence of earth, and though it cleared his head to be holding it, he doubted whether he would be successful trying to cast magic with it.

Feeling slightly at a loss, Syaoran abandoned the four wands he had been presented with, and instead began wondering up and down the shelves, running his fingers along all the circles and finding a simple sort of amusement in making them light up one at a time as he touched them. He soon found himself, however, hovering around a certain area of the shelf.  
Repeating the motion over that section again and again, Syaoran finally came to stand before a circle that was strange to him. Knowing runes well enough, he was able to tell that it was a moon circle, but from what family it originated, even from what part of the world, Syaoran didn't know.

He supposed it was local, because there were many of them here. He stood tapping the symbols of each one until he finally decided to take one out and look at it. It wasn't too terribly long, and was a nice rich shade, the tree this branch had been taken from had been a good, healthy, strong old oak. Under his fingers he could feel a rhythmic swirl to the magic current not unlike a heartbeat.

The power in it surged and welled, warred and came to rest in an endless dance. And something about it was so hypnotically familiar that it put him at ease. The way the energy moved back and forth, back and forth, he had to move with it, back and forth, without even realising he was doing it, back and forth, back and forth, back and--

"**You di? Have you found something?**"

Feimei's words broke his trance and he turned to look back at the youngest of the ladies. Nodding, he raised his hands slightly indicating the object which he held and replied, "**I ****found this...**"

She smiled at him in a very sisterly way, and held out her hand for him to take. He put the wand back in it's box and brought it over to her, and though he didn't take her hand like some small child, he did stand at her side trustingly.

Accepting that to be what it is, she instead laid her hand between his shoulder blades and together the youngest two of the Lis returned to the other three just as Olivander came back into the room.

"Ah, Mr. Li, have you found a wand that's to your liking yet?" he asked in a professional yet not unfriendly manner.

"I have. I've decided I will have this one." he stated, handing the box to the elderly salesman.

Mr. Olivander hesitated for only a moment before taking the box offered. He seemed to gage Syaoran on some higher unknown level. This was a sensation that, though not unfamiliar to the Li children, was not altogether welcome by them. "Interesting..." he finally said at length. "Oak, just over eight inches, core of werewolf heartstring." he rattled off out of habit.

However, he remained seemingly unawares of the youths mounting curiosity as he turned once more in an almost scolding manner to Syaoran. "This is a very temperamental wand, Mr. Li, I'm not sure if it's suited for a child. It requires a powerful wielder with an unshakable will. The consequences to casting anything less--"

He was interrupted by the sound of a very feminine giggle. "Moody, hot-headed, and stubborn, it sounds just like our little Xiao Lang, doesn't it?" Fanren teased.

"I-I do not believe you quite understand the ramifications of--"

"Save your breath, old man." Fuutie spoke up, shaking her head tiredly. "The more you insist it's too much for him, the more he'll insist its the only one he'll have." She then waved a dismissive hand. "Let him have it, it suits him. Perhaps it may even teach him some humility."

"Oh, I doubt that!" Feimei spoke up. "Knowing Xiao Lang, he'll work at it off in some little corner somewhere until he has it mastered. He's always taking the hardest rout for things, you know that!"

Syaoran began to blush under their scrutiny, and Sheifa curled her fingers through his bangs "Why did you choose that particular wand, anyway, You di?"

He shrugged a little self consciously, "I just liked the feel of it when I picked it up."

Olivander shook his head in disbelieving wonder at their lacking interest in listening to him. "Well I'll be... maybe it really WAS Clow Reed that requested them made..."

This caught the sibling's attentions, causing them to raise their eyebrows in curiosity. "What do you mean by that?" Fuutie demanded as they followed the owner back to the front of his shop.

"Oh, nothing much, it's just a long time ago, when I was still just getting into the business, a man came into my shop and requested the creation of five wands made out of some material he had with him. He was very specific about the wands, too. He dropped his name as Clow Reed, not that I believed him, of course, who would, when dealing with such an infamous hermit? You'd expect him just to make his own.

"But I made the wands to his request, as it is my job to do, and waited for him to return to retrieve them. But I waited in vain, as the man never came back . I've only sold one of them since then, and that was a good seven years ago to a young lady. No one else has been in requesting one of his circles." Olivander trailed off. "That one there was one of the five that he requested, and I suppose if you really are his descendant then it belongs with you. Come on out front and I'll ring it up for you."

And with that, the wand was purchased and the Li's were on their way. The next stop on their little family outing had Syaoran's poor mood plummeting even further than before. As any male will tell you, hell has no torture as clothes shopping with a woman, and the young heir had four.

Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions was a prettyish shade of green with a large sign above the doorway. In the windows, were several marionettes that would change poses every minute or two, modeling some of the new fall fashions. As Syaoran pushed open the door and led the others into the reception area beyond, a ringing could be heard like the chime of a bell; however, there was no indication of one in sight.

Brushing aside the oddity of anyone who would bother casting such a charm rather than just putting up a bell to begin with, the young heir turned from the door just as a short, plump woman bustled up. "My! What exquisite robes you girls have! Where ever did you have them made?" the woman asked.

"In China." Fuutie responded, "By our family's tailor."

"Well, mine was bought in Shanghai." Fanren pointed out.

"Ah, so you come from China, then?" the woman asked conversationally as she led them in to one of the fitting rooms.

"Yes. Our brother has a special invitation as an exchange student in Hogwarts." Feimei said in like.

"School robes it is, then! Step up on here and I'll fetch them for you." As Syaoran stepped up onto the platform, he was left by his sisters to look at himself in the angled mirrors as they wondered back out to look at the designs in the windows and racks. He only had to wait about three minutes for the woman to come back in with some robes draped across her arm.

They weren't exactly the type of robes Syaoran was used to wearing, namely his green robes he wore while he assisted Sakura in the capturing of the cards the previous year. These ones were black and looked more like dresses, there were no slits in the skirt part of the robes and Syaoran had to refrain from cringing at the lack of mobility one was restricted to in such a getup.

The collar was wide and loose, like a t-shirt, easy to slip over the head without complexities such as buttons or sashes. The sleeves were long, and though no where near as full as what he was used to in robes, were loose enough not to catch as you moved your arm around. The belt was buckled with a simple gold clasp that lacked any design or trick to it's buckle.

After slipping the first robe on over his head, Syaoran found the length to be rather for one many inches taller than he himself was. The woman stifled a chuckle at the incredulous look Syaoran shot her. "It's very rare that I get someone Hogwarts bound that's so small. It will take a fair bit of tailoring to get them to fit right."

"Don't you simply have a spell or something that can fix it?" the eleven year old asked incredulously as the elderly witch began pinning and tucking at the loose robes.

"There are, but the result is always shoddy at best. To get quality results, you need to take the time to do the work properly." The heir pulled a face in response, but admitted silently that she had a point. So with a sigh, he resigned himself to his fate of standing on a platform for the next hour as she worked away at getting the three sets of school robes, a set of work robes, a big pointy hat, and two different cloaks for varying weather conditions all fitted to his small stature.

On top of his purchase, his sisters also added each their own large arm load of multi-coloured fabric. Whether they were robes or just the fabric to make them (probably both, knowing his sisters) Syaoran could neither tell nor cared to find out in his present predicament. His head felt like someone had wedged a chisel between the two halves of his brain and let a toddler go at it with a ten ton mallet.

"**Can we go now?**" he asked with a tinge of impatience as they left the shop.

"**Yes, I think that would be for the best.**" Fuutie agreed, easily catching Fanren by the elbow as her eyes began drawing her in the direction of another street vendor.  
The siblings left the Leaky Cauldron not even five minutes later and hailed a taxi. They chatted idally during the drive, Feimei finally got to use her Visa to pay the driver, and they all went up to their hotel room. The girls all played with trying on their new clothes while Syaoran locked his door and took a nap.

* * *

It was quarter past six when Sheifa cantripped her way into Syaoran's room. He still lay asleep, which was rare for him, and she smiled at the fact that he held the little winged teddy bear so tenderly as he did so. She took his shoulder and gently shook it, stirring him from his sleep. "**Good morning, sleepy head.**"

"Mmm?" the boy asked, then rubbed the sleep from his eye and tried again. "**Morning already?**"

Sheifa chuckled at him, "**No, it's only evening. But it's time to get up, we've decided to have dinner here, then Feimei says there's going to be a performance on tonight at The Royal Opera House, and Fuutie says that we shouldn't miss the cultural experience while we're here anyway.**"

"**In other words she's bored and doesn't want to go somewhere alone.**" he paraphrased, already feeling much better than he had earlier that day.

"**Quite. But you know how she gets if we try and deny her her way at times like this.**"

"**Absolutely impossible.**" Syaoran agreed. He spent another few minutes staring blankly at the bed's canopy above before rolling over and pulling himself up to a sitting position.

"**Okay, fine. I'm up.**"

"**So, are you going to tell the others about your little girlfriend, or are you going to just leave them to wonder on where the little cute toy came from?**" his second oldest sister teased, eying the toy he left in the middle of his bed.

Syaoran flushed at the sudden change of topic and snatched Sakura-teddy up quickly and shoved it back in his suitcase. "**Mind your own business!**" then, as an afterthought he added a sullen: "**and she's not my girlfriend...**"

"**Indeed? Does this mean you're ready to tell me about her?**" Sheifa asked, making herself comfortable on her brother's bed.

"**Aren't we going to dinner?**" he changed the subject. When Sheifa only sat and laughed at him, he grabbed her arm and pulled. "**Quit that! Get up! It's time to go!**"

Still laughing at her brothers expense, the lady in green let herself be pulled from the bed and out the door.

* * *

Wow, talk about a hellish time trying to finish a chapter... hit with writers block, two computers failing, back-up drives being destroyed, and no time due to university classes... the beginning of this chapter has been completely rewriten a total of four times and the ending has been attempted at no less than seven separate instances. And still, the original idea was cut to make a Part 3 and ensure that the story gets out one day. For those that are interested in my interpretations, here's a little on the Li sisters: Fuutie, born 1976, the lady in red, fire elementalist. Her weapon of choice is the fighting claws. Her personality is said to be very strong and duty bound, she is highly traditionalist and holds her clan above all else, including herself and her family. Sheifa, born 1978, the one in green, her power is a natural trinity between wind, water, and earth, making her a wood elementalist. Her prime weapon type is the spear and shield. As for her nature, she is the family strategist and also the maternal one of the girls. She is Syaoran's favorite sister. Fanren, the older twin, born 1980, she's the one in yellow in the movie, her element is earth. She fights with the Chinese twin maces. She's laid back and likes having lots of trinkets. Feimei, the younger twin, also born in 1980, wears blue, uses water as her element. She fights with the sickle chain. Something of a free spirit, wonderful at potions, suffers from minor cases of claustrophobia. And if anyone's interested, Syaoran's element is wind, though he is studying to learn to be a thunder elementalist like his mother is. Things to look forward to in the next chapter include the Li's exploring the Daigon Alley and Knockturn Alley shopping strips, Sakura and Yukito's shopping trip, and more from Eriol's little family. Also more of what's going on with Harry Potter and his cast if I get any requests for it.

* * *


	8. For Love, War, and Stores Part 3 Full

Chapter 6: Of Love, Wars, And Stores Part 3

It was just as the first of the predawn light started to make its way into Syaoran's hotel room that the young boy awoke. The cultural exploration they had indulged upon the night before had ensured that they hadn't returned home until after midnight, though it had admittedly been a very fascinating performance.

However, agreeing to all head out to finish their mandatory shopping first thing in the morning had driven them all to bed as soon as they returned to their suite. It was when Syaoran came from the shower, towelling his hair as he walked, that he noticed something to be wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, but his sisters all sat in a row-already dressed for the day-with rather peculiar smiles on their faces.

He barely opened his mouth with the intent to ask what was going on when suddenly he found himself pounced by all four giggling girls. As they each took a limb and began carting him off to his room, Fuutie winked down at him and announced "**We've come to an agreement. You have no fashion sense and we can't be seen going everywhere with a dorky looking brother, so we're going to help you.**"

"**Help?**" he squeaked out, dreading what they could have in mind at such a statement.

His only response was four smiles which some part of his brain registered as having been inherited from Clow Reed.

* * *

August 18th, 7 AM found Sirius coming down the stairs into the kitchen with his hair charmed to have bright pink streaks in it. He sat, quietly fuming, next to Remus, who couldn't quite manage to stifle the smile at the sight of his friend, nor could he avoid looking at him from the corner of his eye.

"Your doing?" Sirius almost snarled at his best friend.

"Oh, honestly Padfoot, I haven't done anything so mundane since third year, and you know it." Remus responded with an offended snort.

"The twins, then." concluded the dog-man. "This has a distinctive air of a challenge, you know. They could also use some lessons on class." Sirius mused, slowly gaining something of a smirk.

"Care for some assistance?" Remus asked, pulling forth a smile that had to have the dust shook from it and the rust oiled away to manage to be pulled on his old face.

* * *

Eriol lovingly pulled a brush through Kaho's long auburn hair as she sat and fixed her makeup. He brought a fist full up to his lips and kissed it adoringly, treasuring the silky-soft texture and the floral shampoo scent. Kaho smiled at his reflection in the mirror, amused by his small acts of affection.

The moment was ruined all too quickly by the thundering of footsteps down the hall out the door. "_Akizuki-san! Give that back! It's mine! To-ya gave it to me!_" Yukito's usually calm voice cried from the other side of the door, for once sounding truly agitated.

"_Make me!_" came Nakuru's teasing response. There was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground followed by a minor scuffle and a girlish squeal before they heard Nakuru call out "_Kero-chan, catch!_"

As two voices rose in laughter and Yukito's voice carried farther down the hall calling in a half plead to his brother, Kaho and Eriol exchanged looks before breaking into fits of their own laughter. "THIS is what my life has been missing..." Eriol confessed once the laughter had subsided a little, "the utter chaos that only children can bring..."

Kaho flushed at the unspoken implications in his admittance. "E-Eriol..." she whispered in something between awe and fear.

His only response at first was to smile lovingly at her before he changed the subject slightly. "It's nearing seven-thirty, I had best get breakfast started, the children will be getting hungry soon." and with a chastate kiss to her temple, he walked out the door.

* * *

After forty-five minutes of debating, the four Li girls had finally settled on an outfit to wrestle their brother into. He was lucky that he didn't have many elaborate or gaudy outfits, lest they be there all day. As it were, the outfit they chose for him was not even remotely appealing to his personal tastes, but at least they were satisfied. As it turned out, he got forced into a 'welcome home' present sent to him as a bribe from the Shu Clan.

They had a daughter around Syaoran's age, and had been trying to impress the family long enough to marry her to him. They had sent Syaoran a jade green changshan that hung down to his mid-shins. The silk was of an impressive quality, with his clan's name in a darker shade of green patterned all over, save for a gold embroidered circle on the back which sported Clow Reed's ensigna. With it he wore a pair of black pants held at the waist by a sash beneath the changshan, and a pair of slippers that matched the changshan. As an accessory, Fanren enchanted the hat of his formal robes to match the rest of his outfit.

With that out of the way, Syaoran escorted Fuutie down to the hotel restaurant where the five Li siblings ate their breakfast. They sat ironing out the last of their plans on where they were going to go and when as they waited for the limousine to come for them. By the time the limo came, no less than seven other people staying at the hotel had asked if the Li girls were princesses, three of them got the wrong country and called them Japanese or Korean.

Climbing into their transportation, Sheifa gave the driver directions to the pub they had been at the day before. Everything was without a hitch until they finally reached their destination. When the limo driver pulled over and came to open the door to let the passengers out, he asked in an honestly concerned tone of voice, "Are you kids sure this is where you want off? This isn't exactly the sort of neighbourhood for rich people to wander without some sort of bodyguard..."

Fuutie rewarded his concern with a smile. "We'll be fine; we can take care of ourselves. Just wait here for us until we get back and everything will be fine."

"If you say so, Miss. But I'd really feel better if you'd let me go with you, or at least call someone to escort you..." the driver insisted one last time.

"Thank you, but no. We will be fine."

"Alright, if you insist there's nothing I can do. To have me wait for you here's going to be added to your tab, though."

"Yes and...?"

"Oh, nothing, just law that I tell you so you can't get mad at the charges later."

"Oh, of course. Thank you for your concern and time, Mr..."

"Brown. John Brown."

"Mr. Brown. We will see you in a few hours, then. Good morning." and with that last thing said, the five Li's turned into the Leaky Cauldron.

* * *

8:48 AM.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione paused on the landing on their way up the stairs after breakfast, to watch the twins come from a room and stalk past them. What held their attention, however, was not the twins' oddly dark mood, but rather that they were both sopping wet and that one of them, Fred if they weren't mistaken, had a fish flopping around in his shirt.

The last thing the Golden Trio heard before the twins rounded the corner to the kitchen was a muttered "This means WAR."

* * *

Eriol was just setting the last of the dishes in the drying rack when Sakura poked her head in to see if there was anything he needed help with. "_Its fine, Sakura-san. I've just finished._"

"_Hoe? Gomen ne, Eriol-kun! I would have come earlier to help but Akizuki-san and Kero-chan were picking on Yuki and Yue got mad and came out and I had to stop them from all fighting before they disturbed Spinel-san's reading..._" she tried to explain her tardiness.

Eriol just gave a chuckle. "_Daijoubu, Sakura-san. With a bit of magic, even feeding those three Guardians is rather easy,_" he told her with a wink.

"_Honto ni?_" Sakura asked, with her eyes wide, understanding from personal experience just how much food Yukito and Kero could go through when they both sat down to the same meal.

"_Hai. I'll show you how one day, if you'd like. But putting that aside, if I remember correctly you and Yukito are going to go and get your school supplies today?_" he clarified, changing the subject.

"_Ah! That's right! I can't wait to see what a real magic shop looks like!_" she agreed, visibly regaining her childish energy.

"_Wizards and witches really __do__ do things differently than us sorcerers or those without magic. You ought to have fun there,_" Eriol admitted, seemingly in reminiscence. "_I only wish I could come along to see your face at everything!_"

Sakura's face fell once more. "_Hoe? Eriol-kun, you're not coming with us?_"

"_Iie, I'm afraid I have too much other business to attend to today. Oh, and while we're on the subject of your next school year, have you sent your acceptance letter back to the school?_"

"_Iya, I tried, but the owl had already gone away and I couldn't find another anywhere..._" Sakura admitted with a flush of embarrassment

"_Alright, not to worry, I'll take care of that, as well. It won't take me more than a few extra minutes,_" he informed her, smiling parentally. "_Also, have you thought yet of how you're going to smuggle Yue and Cerberus in with you? Lord knows Yue would never let you leave him behind..._" he rolled his eyes to show his exasperation, but his smile was genuine and loving all the same.

"_Hai, Onii-chan said he should be my translator seeing as I can't speak much English yet,_" Sakura explained.

Eriol nodded in understanding, putting away his apron and starting for the hall. "_Very clever of Touya-san. Alright, I'll be sure to add that bit of information into the letter so they will be expecting him._"

"_And Kero-chan said it was ok to just call him a pet._"

"_Did he now?_" Eriol questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"_Well, after a very long argument about it with Yue, but…_" this admittance managed to draw a chuckle out of Eriol, but as Sakura had chosen to gloss over the whole situation the reincarnated sorcerer chose to follow suit.

"_Yes, there are spells that can give normal seeming animals special features. It's generally frowned upon in the British Isles because of it's obviousness relating to magic; however, if we just write it off as an Asian fashion statement, there would be no problems._" the stormy eyed sorcerer plotted.

"_Hoe? Will I get in trouble?_" Sakura worried.

"_Hmm?_" Eriol glanced up at her a moment before brushing the thoughts aside, "_No, no, I was just thinking aloud. No, you won't get in trouble for it; everyone will just write it off as a cultural thing and leave you alone on the matter. Britain allows a much broader rage for self-expression in schools than Japan does._"

* * *

9:31 AM

Tonks dove from the room at the top of the stairs, followed by an ominous cloud of green powder. Remus Lupin had been assisting Sirius and Tonks in clearing out this old library of anything that Sirius deemed 'unnecessary waste of space'-which admittedly was over half the books in the room—when he had opened a new can of cleaner to get at the mould that had began infesting the shelving unit, it had erupted into the gaseous state of green it was now.

Tonks had given a squeal of surprise and dove as fast as she could from the room, nearly throwing herself off the landing, having to balance-teetering for a moment-on the rail. Remus and Sirius stumbled out after her a moment later, coughing and sputtering and waving their hands around in an attempt to clear the smoke.

Tonks looked at them with concern and thinly veiled amusement at the all around disgruntle looks on the two men's faces. "Are you two okay?" she enquired.

"Yeah, just-" Sirius began, but halted when he heard his own voice. Tonks's eyes widened and Remus looked at him as if he'd sprouted a second head. "...The hell?" Sirius squeaked.

"It seems—wow that feels strange—" Remus interjected, rubbing his throat. "It seems there was something in the powder that had some... unusual side effects." Tonks could only giggle at the helium voices.

* * *

"**Well, that appears to be every book on the list...**" Fuutie announced, looking over the pile and cross-referencing them with the list she had nabbed from Sheifa once they entered. Speaking of which... "**Feimei, where is Sheifa?**"

"**She's been lost in the history section.**"

"**And You di?**"

"**He wandered off down the isle entitled 'Combat Magic'.**"

"**And Fanren?**"

"**I think she's over looking at the magazines.**"

"**Honestly, this family...**" Fuutie gave a roll of her eyes. "**Alright, you go stand in line and pay for all this, I'll go see if I can't find the others.**"

Backtracking along the lengths of the isles that were stacked high with every type of book imaginable, Fuutie headed for the history section first, knowing that her responsible younger sister by one year would be the most likely to agree to come away from the texts without causing undue stress while looking for the others.

* * *

Eriol sat at his study writing documents and double-checking forms when Sakura and Yukito poked their heads in. Turning to the daughter of his other half, he smiled welcomingly to her and her guardian. "_Um... we're going now, we'll be back in a few hours, ok?_" Sakura announced.

"_Alright, have a safe trip; I'll see you when you get back. Is there anything you want for dinner?_" he bid his farewells.

"_Anything would be fine. We'll see you when we get back!_"

"Bye," Yukito added. Eriol just waved and returned to his paperwork.

"Oh, Yukito!" Eriol called just before the two had left his office. The grey-haired man poked his head back into the room for a moment. "You'll need wizarding money to buy things in Daigon Alley. Go ahead and just take what you need from my account. Yue should remember the vault number and particulars involved."

"All right. Thank you, Hiiragizawa-san," and with that final comment they left.

Nearly twenty minutes later, Kaho poked her head into the room and asked "Have you got the paperwork in order yet?"

"Yes, I've just finished. We'll also have one extra stop on our way home, Sakura-san hasn't given her reply yet so we'll be dropping that off for Professor Dumbledore as well," Eriol replied without looking up from the paperwork he was sorting.

"That's that weird house that's hard to find, isn't it?" Kaho questioned with a thoughtful finger to her lower lip, recalling the name of the English wizard.

"Yes, that's the one," Eriol confirmed, finally turning now that his documents were in order and looking the beautiful woman in the eye. "You don't mind, do you?"

Kaho shook her head carelessly. "No, not particularly, shall we be off?"

"Yes we shall." Eriol stood from his desk and exited the room with Kaho at his side. Stepping aside, Eriol detoured to the living room where Nakuru was sitting and watching TV. "Nakuru, Kaho and I are going out. We will be back in a few hours. You know what to do if someone comes to the door, right?"

"Don't let them in, and don't let them know there's not an adult here," Nakuru recited for her master.

"Alright, good job. We'll see you later."

"Have a safe trip, Eriol," Nakuru responded without even taking her eyes off the television.

* * *

10: 01 AM

Tonks had just barely managed to duck behind the door frame in time to avoid being seen as the twins stepped out of the room into the hallway where they had laid their trap. The three adults huddled together to hide as the loud and shocked voiced of the two identical red-heads filled the otherwise empty hall.

It had been pure genius, in her opinion, on Lupin's part to charm the floorboards with a temporary sticking charm that made the planks of wood stick to the bottom of the boy's feet. Stumbling and tripping over themselves as the boards lifted off the floor as they tried to escape the predicament the pranksters in hiding nearly couldn't contain their laughter as the clacking travelled further away.

* * *

After convincing Sheifa that she didn't need to buy a copy of every single book the store had, and managing to talk Syaoran out of giving a live demonstration of the spells he had found in the duelling books, and when Fanren was finally convinced that she really and truthfully didn't need to know all the latest fashion secrets of London witches for the upcoming fall season, the family of five made their way back into the streets.

"**So what now?**" the young heir asked, looking to his eldest two sisters who seemed intent on playing 'pass the list' between themselves every few minutes.

"**No worries, little cub, we're almost done. We need only to buy your potion supplies and a telescope for you and then we can be off for some lunch,**" Fuutie insisted, striking a path through the crowd.

"**Don't call me that,**" he grumbled, following the eldest of them on her path. She lead them across the street to a store that had on display a variety of magical interments, some of which had an obvious function to them—such as scales or telescopes—while others were completely undefinable, many of which were comprised of intricate spirals of a silvery-coloured metal and had enough moving parts to be nearly considered optical illusions.

The sign out side indicated that they sold Hogwarts supplies and while the other three wandered over to examine the telescopes, Feimei caught hold of her brother's arm and the two youngest Li children headed inside "**If you're going to be taking a potions class, you're going to need a proper set of tools. Just leave that up to Jei jei here,**" she assured him, giving the arm linked with her own a light squeeze of reassurance.

Coming to a large section of shelving, covered floor to ceiling in scales of all sorts of material and accuracy readings, Feimei pulled a small bauble from her purse and began to carefully go through one by one each of the scales, adjusting knobs and moving weights before seemingly narrowing down her selection to a few choice options.

Having narrowed it down to ten choices, which she pulled from the shelves and lined up on the floor before her, she then returned the bauble and pulled out another, smaller one instead and repeated the process, this time discarding all but three of them. One last time, she dug into her purse and produced a tiny crystal-like bead. She fussed with this one the longest, going back and re-checking values on each of the scales several times over before finally deciding on the one to the far left.

"**These charms,**" she began, lifting the chosen scale delicately, "**are my personal weights. Exactly 100, 10, and 1 milligram respectively. This scale's 0.352 milligrams off on its calculations, but it's better than the other two. It's made of a platinum alloy and so can withstand a lot of heat. It's not magnetic, nor is it very reactive with anything, so it shouldn't mess with your readings at all, either.**"

"**That's wonderful, Mei mei, but the list clearly states that he's supposed to have brass scales...**" Sheifa spoke up when they two of them were joined by the other three, apparently also having finished selecting a telescope that they had found satisfactory for the young heir.

"**This one's better,**" she said, as if that were all the reasoning needed to disregard the school rules.

"**You di's supposed to-**" Sheifa began, but was cut off by the younger twin. This was, after all, the one and only point upon which Feimei could be horridly stubborn.

"**It's better. He'll get better results and get better marks with this one. No one will complain about the likes of that.**"

"**They will, seeing as it's against the rules.**"

"**Fine! Then you go find him a set of poor quality brass scales, but I'm still buying this one for You di!**" she insisted with determination. She marched stubbornly off to the glassware section where she instead began carefully measuring various pieces of different shaped and sized funnels, flasks, and beakers, mixing and matching them to give the results she desired.

* * *

10:21 AM

Ron paused on his entering the bathroom to see both his older brothers kneeling before the door, doing something to it that he'd rather not know about. They looked at him, he looked back, they held a finger to each of their mouths, and he sighed and nodded before turning and heading for the stairs down. He would have to remember not to use the fifth floor bathroom for the rest of the time he was here.

* * *

Sakura looked everywhere as she and her guardian stepped from the brick wall that moved and into the street. Her oceanic eyes were alight as she looked up and down and all around herself, trying to take in every unusual sight and bright colour that the little alleyway afforded.

"_Hoe! Yuki, look at that! There's a broom shop over there! The witches really do ride on broomsticks! And oh! There's owls! I've never seen real live owls before!_" she cheered.

Yukito gave a melodious chuckle at his young charge's exuberance, "_Yes, yes, and you'll see much more before the year is up, I promise you that, but first thing's first: to the bank!_"

He took her hand in his own pale one and led her down the zigzagging alleyway. The swirling of bright, vibrant colours kept the excited child's head craning every which way. Busy witches and wizards hurried here and there, voices raised in an effort to talk over everyone else as they bartered prices and called out their wares.

Yet looming in the distance, dwarfing all the buildings around it, a tall marble building drew close. "_Here we are, the Gringotts Bank. You ready to get our money exchanged?_"

"_What are those things standing by the door?_" Sakura asked, pointing at the small figures with long fingers.

"_Those are goblins, a type of magical race,_" Yukito explained. "_They can be rather dangerous if provoked, so stick close to me, okay?_"

Sakura nodded and took a step closer to her guardian. "_Alright…_"

* * *

By the time they finally exited the shop with two scale sets and a number more measuring instruments than the list called for, Syaoran found himself the owner of the makings of his own potions mastery set. No where, mind you, as extensive as that which Feimei had for her own personal potions laboratory back in Hong Kong, but it was a decent start.

The last stop of the day, the apothecary's was just a quick jump across the street from the cauldron shop. There was far less banging of heads when buying a cauldron as they located one with a good thickness and wide base for even heating. They had loaded the cauldron with the potion supplies listed as being required for the student to bring, and many of which had Feimei stopping to ponder on the use of.

They were local supplies, you see, not the ones found commonly in China that she was used to, and before they had left the shop she had secured from Syaoran's bags his potions text book and become so lost in reading it over that Fanren and Sheifa had to each take an arm and steer her along to walk as she read.

They left the alley through the Leaky Cauldron and surprised poor Mr. Brown when he saw the armloads of things they had accumulated from the dirty old tavern. After hurrying forward to help them with the big metal pot and then the books to get them all into the trunk, the glassware was wrapped and set on the floor of the back seats and all the people piled into the limo one after another with the only directions from Sheifa being to "take us somewhere decent to eat."

Thirty minutes later found the five of them sitting in a rather classy restaurant browsing the menus.

* * *

11:17 AM

As Fred and George stepped out of the tropical rainforest that had once been the east wing of the house, George turned to his brother and said "You know that was actually a pretty good one."

"Indeed. When this is over, we're definitely going to have to get them to tell us how they managed it," Fred agreed.

"Quite. But for the moment, what to do for revenge?"

* * *

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Mizuki, Mr. Hi—erm..." the teller staggered over how to pronounce the last name written on the papers as he handed them over to the woman.

"Eriol will do just fine, thank you." he responded, shaking hands with the man once more before getting up and exiting the bank with his 'legal guardian'.

She tucked the papers into her purse as they walked. "Are you sure you want to be doing this? Getting rid of all of it, I mean?"

"Yes... I have been the sole possessor for far too long and I really don't need it all, anyway. I still have the house here, and most the money, so it's not like there's going to be any problems or anything..." Eriol explained, slipping his hand silently into her own.

Observers were oblivious to the secret caresses of his thumb against her pale skin, to the gentle squeeze he felt around his hand as her fingers pushed their palms just that much closer. All they saw was what they wanted to see, a beautiful mother holding the hand of her handsome little son as they made their way down the street.

* * *

12:05 PM

The table sat in a tense silence. The bright yellow spots all over the twin's faces still continued to multiply and divide at random, and Tonks had taken the ring that screeched horridly off-key love songs from the start of the century and decided to wear it in her hair for the meal, just to torture everyone else in the room.

But other than that, there had been something of a truce called for the meal by order of one Mrs. Molly Weasley on the threat of hexing anyone who didn't bend to her rule with, and I quote, 'a curse so bloody horrifying that Merlin himself would faint away at the sight of it!'

Admittedly, for the sake of curiosity, all five participants in this little competition were on the edge of their seats, awaiting a moment where they could spring a trap for Molly. However, self-preservation and a mother's watchful eye had ensured their behaviour thus far.

* * *

Yukito carried his Mistress out of Gringotts piggy-back style. Her eyes were still spinning from all the twists and turns on the roller coaster-like ride to and from the vaults and when she had tried to get off had lost her balance and fallen over. So now she sat quite contentedly on his back and waited for the world to stop spinning at super sonic speeds.

"_So, what do you want to get first? Your wand? Your books? Your robes?_"

"_I want a broom!_" she suddenly announced, loosing all dizziness and becoming her usual hyper self in a flash.

"_But Sakura-chan, the letter says you can't have a broom until second year._"

"_Awa... but witches are supposed to have brooms..._" she pouted as Yukito let her back down on her feet once more.

"_How about we go get you your magic wand, instead?_"

Sakura's face lit up again at once when he said that. "_Okay! I wonder what it will be like?_"

After a few minutes further in which they wondered around looking for the wand shop, Yukito finally spotted a sign carved above the door of the last shop on the alley in weather-warn wood. Guiding Sakura into the dusty old shop, they eyed the tall dark shelves somewhat unsurely. There were rows upon rows of old boxes coated in dust and cobwebs stretched along the ceiling and in obscure corners. It gave the building an almost abandoned feel to it, and Sakura was quite sure that it would be haunted as well.

The Japanese duo would have exited for mistake of it being just a storage house if another family were not already standing and awaiting perches of their own new wand. The woman was willowy and pale and obviously of European decent. The boy, on the other hand, was from African ancestry with dreadlocks and warm black eyes. When he noticed how Sakura fidgeted nervously, he gave her a grin full of toothy confidence born of one who was totally at home in his surroundings. He bounced easily on the balls of his feet to the beat in his head that only he was privy to.

A moment later an old man with pale eyes and white hair stepped out from the back of the shelves and started slightly at the sight of Yukito and Sakura standing there. "I'll be with you in a moment, sir, miss." he told them before handing over the thin box he was carrying to the boy. The boy confidently took it out and gave it a quick wave, electing a sort of fizzle and a few puttered sparks and the old man took the wand back. "No, no… but no worries Mrs. Shacklebolt, we'll get your boy a fine wand, the right one for him is in here somewhere! The strongest wizards always take the longest to sort out, after all."

"Yes... if the number of times he's stolen his father's wand to play with it is any conciliation then we know he at least has a talent for charming cats green." the woman said, giving the boy a stern look and earning a bashful grin in response.

Olivander, for his part, gave a hearty laugh at this, "What pure-blooded boy hasn't at least once in his life gotten his hands on his parent's wands to try their hand at a bit of spell-work? No harm done in a little innocent curiosity."

It was another ten minutes before the boy, whose name had been revealed over the course of the conversation to be Lucas Shacklebolt, had been situated with his wand. (Elder wood, 10 inches, phoenix feather core, natural for transfiguration.) With a wave goodbye to Sakura, Lucas followed his mother out of the shop and Olivander then turned to Yukito and his charge.

"Well now, this is to be a busy year! Second family of sorcerers this week! Right this way, we'll find you your wand in back here, miss." Olivander stated, beckoning Sakura and Yukito to follow.

* * *

1:38 PM

The knock on the door caused the three adults to eye each other, both curious and weary of what the twins could be up to by setting such an obvious trap. When the knock rang a second time, Remus shrugged in defeat and went to open the door. It's not like they wouldn't get back at whatever the twins were up to, after all.

However, when the door opened to reveal the Asian woman from the other day, Remus's heart took a leap into his throat at the unexpected surprise. Their eyes met for a moment as each took in the other's features in recognition, and then she smiled at him like she was truly happy to see him. "Oh, hello again. I'm sorry if I was interrupting something, I just came by to drop this off..." she announced lifting up yet another mysterious letter.

Remus could feel himself heat up with a flush worthy of a first year at her charming smile. "Ah, yeah—er, no. No, nothing at all, just cleaning," Remus stammered out, mentally he shook himself to try and clear his mind of the odd daze it seemed to have fallen into at this point. "Um, thank you. I'll give it to Dumbledore when I see him, Miss..."

"Mizuki."

"I'm Remus. Remus Lupin."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lupin," she said with a slight bow. "I must be going now."

"Oh, ah, of course. Have a good day."

"And a good day to you, too."

When Remus closed the door again and turned back around, his heart froze solid. Sirius was grinning. At him. And it wasn't one of his friendly grins, either. "I think someone's in loo-ooove..." the dog-man snickered out. Remus's face only grew redder.

At the end of the street, Eriol stepped from around the tree he had been waiting by and to Kaho's side. "_Did you give them the letter?_" he asked, more out of politeness than an actual need to be told.

"_Yes. Is it normal for werewolves to be affected by our magic fields?_" Kaho asked conversationally.

"_Quite often, yes. It depends on how long they've been a werewolf, of course, but on the whole the virus that turns them into a magical beast once a month is also enough of an influence to make them part of magic, and therefore more susceptible,_" Eriol lectured knowledgeably.

"_I see..._"

"_Oh? So am I now doomed to fall into horrid fits of jealousy and vengeance due to my lady fair finding comforts in the arms of another man?_" the small sorcerer asked, with feigned innocence.

"_Oh... __really__ Eriol, you can be such a tease..._" Kaho scolded through her laughter.

"_When did you see that he was a werewolf?_" Eriol asked conversationally, as they began their walk home.

"_Last night. I wasn't sure if it was him, because it came as just a series of flashes at the time. Him, and others, including a werewolf running around that school… it wasn't until just now when he opened the door that I saw a clear image of his transformation._"

Eriol nodded sagely at this. "_Do you think it was from the past, or the future that you were looking?_" he prompted, falling into the role of mentor to his lovely apprentice.

"_It seemed like a mixture, like an introduction to the important information necessary to understand something that is yet to come…_" the young seer expressed.

"_I see. Well, if your sight indicated that they would be players in some future event, you had best keep an eye on them so you can decide what course of action is right for you to take,_" Eriol advised.

"_Yes, I understand._"

* * *

"**Oh, dear, look at the time! We really should be getting back to that alleyway soon...**" Fuutie commented as she eyed her watch.

"**Why? We already finished all the shopping,**" Feimei pointed out, not interested in such rickety looking shops when the rest of London had wonderful designer clothing and expensive perfume and jewelry to be browsing instead.

"**Yes, but we did agree that You di needs as much time in among their magic as he can get during the days so that he can be used to the chaos of it in time for classes,**" Sheifa pointed out, pulling out her credit card from her purse.

"**I know it's the smart thing to do, but I ****really**** don't want to right now...**" Syaoran grumbled, still not over the headache he had from spending the morning there.

"**I know, but it's been over two hours already and the shops will begin closing before too much longer. And this time we can go and look in other shops and find something you may find enjoyable. How would you like that?**" Fuutie pointed out to him.

"***Sigh...* Yeah, fine. I doubt there'll be anything, but it's definitely worth looking,**" Syaoran agreed.

"**Good. And if nothing else, we can always head back to the book store and you can get lost again in the combat magic section,**" Sheifa teased. And with that decided, the five Li siblings exited the restaurant and headed out to the limo once more where Mr. Brown drove them back to the Leaky Cauldron.

* * *

"_Okay, so now that getting our wands are out of the way, how about we work our way back up the street to finish up the shopping trip?_" Yukito suggested as he and his Mistress exited Olivanders. He had already stowed his own wand (Birch, 9 ¾ inches, an unidentified white feather for it's core) away in one of his pockets while Sakura walked next to him, lazily waving her wand (Cherry, 12 ½ inches, an odd dual core of a white feather and a silver hair thought to be veela) and enjoying the sight of the sparkles that drifted down from the tip.

"_Okay! That'll work!_" Sakura happily agreed, placing her hand in his so that he could steer her to the next shopping destination without her having to look away from the silver and pink glitter ejecting itself out the end of her new stick.

With that agreed on, Yukito lead his young charge back up the street, passed the bank, and into a cutesy little robe shop called Madam Malkin's.

* * *

2:06 PM

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny lay on their stomachs at the top of the stairs while they watched the mayhem down below. Quite some time ago it had been agreed that by far the safest thing to do until this little pranking war had run its course was to hide away and not touch anything anywhere.

Old Mundungus had been up here earlier and had set up a bet with Ginny and the boys over who would win. Ron and Ginny had both bet on their brothers, insisting that they knew just how stubborn the two were and that they wouldn't give up until they won. Harry had to go with Sirius and Lupin, who he knew from stories were veteran pranksters along with his dad from back when they were all teens in Hogwarts. Hermione could not be enticed to join, insisting that such bets were not only futile but also a waste of money.

That had been close to an hour ago, though. After Dung had gotten the bets off them he had said he didn't much feel like sticking around and getting covered in feathers or anything and so had apparated away shortly afterwards. They had since then seen a couple of things more interesting than just feathers show up, including the one that had Ginny giggling to the point of tears. Fred had somehow been cursed to belch fire, and had decided to put on a performance for them by belching the alphabet and ended up accidentally setting Mrs. Black's curtains on fire which had caused a good deal of noise and chaos.

It was just then that Mr. Weasley came up the steps and stopped next to the children. "Hello kids! And what are you all doing here?"

"Hi dad," came the chorus from his children while Harry and Hermione added in an echo of "Hi Mr. Weasley" for their part. Then Ginny took it solo and continued the explanation. "We're hiding so that we don't get dragged in to the pranking war."

"Ah, I see..." Mr. Weasley murmured out.

"Yeah, we figured its safest not to move around or touch anything until that lot has gotten it out of their system," Harry added.

"Hmmm... Smart plan!" and so Mr. Weasley lowered himself down to the floor beside them and struck up a conversation about how vacuum cleaners work with Hermione.

* * *

Getting the robes done had been surprisingly quick, Sakura proved to be a very efficient model after all the times that Tomoyo had insisted on her dressing up and trying on clothes. And the design of the robes was simple and clean cut, with the only problem arising in the fact that Sakura was slightly smaller than most the children who came in to try on robes.

However, with the problem quickly righted, leaving her with a slightly baggy set as it was the smallest size of uniform they had, they had paid the money and were off to the next building over to buy books. There were several stands set up out front of the store that were made to promote a specific book over the others. There was a towering collection piled up in the shape of a castle, and another spot where the books were flapping around and required being tethered to the table to stop them from flying away. And still another set that were in a thick metal cage with warning signs all around them to keep back. These books snarled and snapped at everything with sharp teeth and one would occasionally lunge at the bars causing the whole cage to rattle.

"_Hooeeeee... look at all of them! There's so many!_" Sakura breathed out in awe.

"_Indeed there are. Come inside, now, though. The books you need are in here._" Yukito gently prompted, leading his mistress within the little building.

Sakura jumped in surprise as she stepped through the doors of the little shop and somehow entered a three-story building that was larger and had more books in it than she had ever seen before in her life. Confused by the physics of it, she quickly hurried back outside and looked again to see the small stature that held the huge library.

"_Sakura-chan?_" Yukito questioned as he stepped back out to be with her.

"_From the outside it's little but inside it's huge! Yuki, which one is real and which is the illusion spell?_"

Yukito's eyes grew distant as he listened to an internal knowledge for a moment before speaking. "_It's not an illusion, it's compressed space, like The Maze. It's much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside because space has been folded in on itself here._"

"_Wizard magic can do that?_" Sakura asked in amazement.

"_Yes, that's one of many things their spells can accomplish._" Yukito reassured.

"_Hoe..._" Sakura whispered on the edge of boiling over with excitement. Being lead inside once more with an eagerness to be impressed, the little sorceress followed her guardian's lead without question. He grabbed a cart and they walked up and down the isles, him browsing the titles for the books on the list while she pushed the cart.

They had gotten nearly two thirds of the way through the book list when they were forced to stop momentarily. A small furrow creased Yukito's brow as he stared up at the Standard Book of Spells: Grade One on the top shelf. While it's location would be no problem for a Caucasian adult customer, Yukito had the height of an average Asian woman, and so the bottom of the top shelf was still a few inches higher than his hand could reach.

Worrying his bottom lip for a moment, Yukito turned to his charge. "_Sakura-chan, you wait here with the cart for a moment, I'm going to see if I can't find an employee to assist us._"

"_Hai! I'll be good!_" Sakura assured, watching Yukito walk away with a resigned shake of his head.

Having nothing better to do while she waited, Sakura's eyes scanned the displays set up at the end of each isle. One display had a poster above it of some blond man in purple who was fighting what looked like a big mean dog-man. Another display had a big pink and green sign above it with bold golden writing that scrolled through. Sakura amused herself for several moments attempting to translate the revolving message:

_Make your Dreams become Reality! Transfiguration's Guide to Creating Everything you Ever Wished to Make! Twelve Easy Steps to Making the Ordinary become the Extraordinary!_

And then the message would start again. Though Sakura couldn't understand the full meaning of all the words, she could understand enough to get the general gist of everything said. _A book that can make anything you want appear?_ "Hoeee..."

It was only a moment or two later when Yukito came back trailing after a tall young woman. "_I'm back, Sakura-chan. Sorry to keep you waiting,_" the silver haired young man called out, causing his Mistress to turn and face him.

Smiling brightly at him, Sakura responded. "_Welcome back, Yuki! Look at that book over there! It says it can tell you how to make anything you want!_" the young girl announced excitedly.

"Hmm?" Yukito questioned, glancing up at the display and reading the sign a moment before smiling fondly.

Before he had a chance to correct her, the lady he was walking with turned and asked him "Standard Book of Spells, right? First year?"

"Yes, that's correct. I am sorry that we are an inconvenience," Yukito said sweetly, taking the book from her as she pulled it off the shelf.

"Oh," she giggled, "not at all. It's rather silly of them to put a first year Hogwarts book on the top shelf, after all..."

"Thank you very much for your assistance," Yukito acknowledged with a slight bow.

"Thank you very much," Sakura mimicked.

The young lady blushed at being bowed to for only getting a book down and giggled again in her nervousness. "N-no, really. No problem. H-have a nice day."

"You too," Yukito agreed, waving to the employee as she left.

"Have nice day!" Sakura parroted once more. Then when the young lady was out of sight, she turned once more to Yukito. "_May we get the everything book, too? It would be very useful!_" she insisted.

"_Oh, Sakura-chan. It doesn't really make everything, it's just a figure of speech. A sales gimmick, you understand?_" Yukito explained, smiling at her innocence.

"_Hoe? You mean it doesn't teach you to make things appear?_"

"_No, I'm sorry,_" Yukito explained. "_Should we continue with our shopping now?_"

"Hai," she responded, taking hold of the cart once more and they continued on their way. Before rounding the corner, however, Sakura turned one last time to look at the display. _It would be nice though, _she thought, _a book that could create anything you wanted... _

Unnoticed to either Sorceress or Guardian was the faintly growing of a magic circle where the young Card Mistress had stood a moment before. A slow swirl, compressing the magic in the locally charged atmosphere, condensing it into a solid form. A small rectangular paper spun suspended within the empty space above the slowly fading circle. Then, as if making up its mind, it floated over gently to the revolving stand which had a number of notebooks and diaries within it.

The card glowed for a moment, then stretched and pulled in all three dimensions until it became a pretty little pink book and settled itself innocently in behind a blue diary.

* * *

Syaoran gently tapped the glass tank holding the silvery multi-legged tweezers causing the skittering instruments to converge on the location his hand hovered by. "Weird... what are they?" he asked the shop owner of the grubby store the Li children had found in an off-shooting alley to the main Daigon Alley. This side alley was far less populated, and so it was easier on Syaoran to keep his head strait.

The owner, who had been eyeing the expensive silks and jewels on the Asian group since they came in, swooped in on the young boy with all the air of a car salesman. "Ah, those are Remote Potion Injectors."

"Oh, assassination tools. Curious country, Britain, that a common little shop vender would be selling such things out in the open..." Sheifa noted, looking in at the skittering instruments.

"Oh, no! Not at all, miss!" the shop keeper quickly insisted. "They're medical tools used for patients with highly dangerous and contagious diseases."

"Yuck! They look like spiders! Who would buy something like that?" Fanren squirmed and pulled a face showing exactly what she thought about such things. "Forget it; I'm going for ice cream. Come on, Feimei."

"B-but...!" the youngest of the girls whined as she was pulled from the shelf advertising vials of blood collected from a wide variety of rare magical animals and even humans.

"We're going with them. Don't get yourself poisoned by the metal spiders, You di." Fuutie called to the heir as she and Sheifa followed the twins out of the shop.

"Yeah, yeah." he waved his sisters off without really hearing them. "Hey old man, how do these things work, anyway?"

"Ah, you see this glass bubble here in the center? You place the potion within there, and then levitate the injector into the room and set it down on the patient's bed. And when it detects a hot surface touching it, it will use the needle seen there on the bottom of the injector to dispense the potion and will then return all on it's own to its registered case."

"Oh, so it's thermosensitive, huh? But how?"

The shopkeeper blinked at the unfamiliar terminology. "Pardon? I-I just told you: you put the potion in the-"

"No, no! I mean how does it know where the heat is? How does it move around like that? How does it know where to come back to?" Syaoran explained himself, rather irately.

"I'm sorry, little boy, but those are professional secrets..." the shopkeeper insisted.

Syaoran gave him a long, penetrating glare. "...You're not very smart, are you?"

* * *

Sakura yawned.

This fact to most people would seem inconsequential and unnecessary to note or elaborate on. However, for Yukito and more exactly Yue who resided within Yukito, Sakura's existence was the world's primary concern. She rubbed at her eye with one little fist and Yue exclaimed that something must be wrong because it was only the middle of the day. Yukito countered that thought almost immediately with the problems of jet lag for beings that actually require rest regularly to function rather than just as a boost to help restore their magic levels.

Still, Yukito smiled down at his boyfriend's little sister. "_Feeling a bit tired?_"

"_I'm ok,_" replied Sakura, "_we've just been doing lots of stuff today._"

Yukito glanced up just in time to see a sign indicating an ice cream parlour and got an idea. "_Why don't we stop and have some ice cream before we continue, shall we?_" Sakura brightened up at once at the promise of the sweet treat and nodded empathically. Yukito laughed and lead her into the small shop and over to the counter. "_What would you like?_" he asked.

Sakura examined every flavour on display before choosing one that was chocolate with swirls of caramel and candies in it. Yukito just ordered a simple triple scooped strawberry flavoured cone and placed their orders. It was when they were just walking out the door that they nearly ran in to four teens in fancy Chinese silk. "Oh, excuse us." Yukito apologized with a slight bow.

"Excuse!" parroted Sakura, who also bowed.

"Oh, no, no. It's quite alright. We weren't watching where we were going either." The lady in green exclaimed, bowing slightly in return.

In the background, the twin in blue leaned over to her counter part in gold and whispered "**He's kinda cute, isn't he?**"

Yukito flushed upon hearing this comment. "**Thank you. I think.**" he responded.

"**You speak Cantonese?**" the young woman in red questioned, sounding minorly impressed. "**But your features, aren't you Japanese?**"

"**Some, yes. I've picked it up over the years.**" Yukito replied. The girl in blue looked rather embarrassed about her comment now that she knew she had been understood. Taking pity on her, Yukito changed the subject quickly. "You young ladies wouldn't happen to know where we might be able to purchase a cauldron, would you?"

The young lady in green pointed back towards the mouth of the alley. "They're right next to the entrance, across from the apocrathary." she informed them.

"Thank you." Yukito said, bowing once more and pulling at Sakura's hand to lead her away. She bowed a quick goodbye over her shoulder and hurried off at his heals.

When they were out of sight, the four girls turned among themselves. "**Now they were cute.**" Sheifa announced to her sisters.

"**That little girl had the most adorable hair cut!**" squealed Fanren.

"**I wonder who he was...**" Feimei mused.

"**I wonder who both of them were**." Fuutie countered. "**He was impressive, sure, but that kid... I've never felt anyone who draws people so strongly. She is powerful as hell to even have that sort of effect on us in such a surrounding.**"

"**You think she might be going to Hogwarts with You di?**" Feimei asked.

"**It's probable, due to her age. We should inform Mu qin about this when we get back home.**" Sheifa decided. With that settled the four Li girls entered the parlour and ordered their ice cream, getting an extra chocolate one for their brother, before heading back to find him once more.

They arrived back on location down the little side alley to find him being hauled out of the shop by a smouldering, irate shop owner who had hold of the scruff of his neck. "That is it! Out, out, out! No more questions, no more spell work, get out and don't come back!"

* * *

3:48 PM

The werewolf and the two cousins sat around a scrap of paper covered with quick scribbles of illegible words and overly-simplified diagrams to the point that the diagrams became complicated. "So we're all good on the plan?" Padfoot asked the other two.

"I know my part!" Tonks practically cheered, holding up her hand.

"These kids won't know what hit them." Moony smirked, looking coy and fiddling with his wand. "Let's begin, shall we?" he prompted the other two, raising a brow and turning his head slightly to the left in order to emphasize that they should get moving.

However, before the three could do more than stand from their crouching positions, the Weasley twins threw themselves against the banisters above, and pulled a cast-and-dash on the adults below them. As they heard the twins laughing voices float farther down the hall, the cousins and werewolf all looked among themselves at each other.

It had been some sort of jumbled up transfiguration spell, giving them a multitude of random animal parts which included toucan beaks, large mouse ears, frog limbs and... Remus blinked. "What type of animal has that kind of tail do you suppose?"

"I think it's a zebra..." Sirius responded.

While Tonks clicked her beak experimentally, and sashayed her hips back and forth to get her new tail to wag, Sirius reached into his pocket with his newly webbed hands and pulled out his wand to begin removing the partial transfigurations on his kid cousin and pack brother.

* * *

The door to the Reed Mansion swung open to reveal to Eriol and Kaho a state of chaos. Apparently, some point in time during the day while everyone was out, Kero and Nakuru had decided to turn the grand entrance way into a fort, having moved many of the blankets and tables into the room and propped them up to build their play house with. The broom from the kitchen had even been taken and stuck up on top with one of Nakuru's shirts tied to it like a flag.

"Ah, it seems as though the children have been having fun while we were out..." Eriol commented, not the least bit concerned for the state of the antique furniture.

"So they have. Is that your bedside table?" Kaho commented, walking around the construction so not to disturb it.

"Indeed it is; you have a good eye," Eriol smiled. From the far room, the sound of music, shouting, and laughter could be heard. From the conversation it sounded as though Nakuru and Kero were battling it out in some sort of fighting game on Nakuru's gaming system. And if the occasional thuds and screams of despair were any indication, they were getting very into the game, re-enacting powerful moves and painful death scenes in the living room.

The door to the study cracked open on it's own for a moment before a small black and blue kitten floated through, with a look of pure torment and pleading on his face. "Eriol..." Spinel whined, "they've been noisy all day. I can't even hear myself think..."

"Oh... there, there, Spinel. Do you have a headache?" Eriol asked, plucking his sun guardian from the air and cradling him in his arms.

"No," Spinel admitted, rubbing the side of his face against his master's chest. "Just bored. And annoyed. I can't concentrate with all this racket. How am I supposed to read with them running in and out screaming all day?"

"Alright, Spinel. I'll make everything better." Eriol told him lovingly. He stepped over and pulled one of the blankets from the abandoned fort and laid it over his shoulder then went into his study and cast a quick wind spell to float an odd dozen or so of Clow Reed's old journals and make them follow him.

Going into the back yard, he laid the blanket on the ground, the books and Spinel floating around and watching in varying levels of curiosity. He beckoned the books and guardian onto the blanket, and then cast a shell of silence over the whole thing. "There, now. Is that better?"

"Yes. Thank you, Eriol," Spinel said, making himself comfortable on the spread and levitating one of the books over to read.

When he was sure his guardian was comfortable at last, Eriol moved from the dome and back into the house. In the entry way he found that Kaho had already put the children to work cleaning up their fort and so merely stepped past rather than interrupt their conversation about the fighting game and who had beaten who more often.

He paused mid-step by the foot of the stairs when he saw Kaho standing at the top of the stairwell watching him, but she merely smiled adoringly at him and so he returned the expression and continued up to join her. "The children are all well occupied and shan't be wanting attention for a while..." he spoke quietly, holding out his arm to the woman he loved.

She smiled coyly in response. "And you wish to take advantage of that fact, do you?"

Still, she placed her hand on his forearm and let herself be lead away down the hall.

* * *

Sakura stepped from the cauldron shop, eyes bright and arms laden with purchases. She was so excited about going to Hogwarts. There were so many amazing things in this alleyway alone; she couldn't even begin to imagine all the amazing things she would be seeing for the rest of the year.

Suddenly her vision tunnelled and noise cut out of her world. She swooned, trying to stay on her feet, and felt a hand reach out and steady her. Familiar, warm, and accompanied by a worried voice that somehow cut through the spinning of her head. "_Sakura! Sakura, daijoubu?_"

"_...Yuki..._" she asked weakly. A few startled passer-bys had stopped as well, one boy of chunky build in his mid teens was even being nice enough to help gather up the contents of the bags that had spilled when Sakura had dropped them. She opened her eyes to see his concerned gold eyes looking down at her from where he stood, half holding her upright.

"_Oh, thank goodness. You nearly passed out on your feet. How are you feeling?_" he pressed her, kneeling down and sitting her on his knee until he was sure she was better. Her face was pale and her skin clammy.

"_Gomen ne, Yuki. I'm just really sleepy. It must be the jet lag..._" Sakura tried to excuse. "_I'll be better after some rest, I promise._"

Yuki looked like he wanted to argue the matter for a moment before relinquishing to her will. "_Alright. We've finished shopping, so let's hurry and get back ho-er, to Eriol's house. You can rest there._"

"Is she alright?" the lad asked, stacking the last of the bags upright by Yukito's side.

"Yes, thank you. She's just suffering from sleep deprivation." Yukito responded, though he didn't sound too very sure himself.

An elderly witch in green robes with a red handbag and a stuffed vulture on her hat pushed her way through the small crowd and stood over the boy. "What is the hold up?" she demanded curtly.

"Oh, Grandmother. This girl fainted, I was just helping pick their stuff up..." he replied.

Giving a curt nod, the elderly witch pulled out her wand and with three sharp swishes all their possessions shrunk and stacked themselves smartly into the cauldron sitting at Yukito's side. "That ought to do it. Now, young man, make sure that girl is taken to St. Mungo's strait away. We can't have some strange epidemic spreading throughout all of Daigon Alley, now, can we?"

"Yes, thank you ma'am," Yukito said, supporting Sakura's shoulders as he gave an awkward bow beside her.

It took a bit of effort on his part, and Sakura fussed that it wasn't the least bit necessary, but Yue was insistent that the Mistress mustn't come to any harm and so Yukito managed both carrying her piggyback style and her schooling supplies out to the front curb where he called for a taxi. He probably would not have managed if it weren't for the assistance the old witch had provided in shrinking their possessions to fit in one container, but he did all the same.

* * *

4:25 PM

Hermione was busy reviewing old textbooks, refreshing the course material from the year before, and insisting that it was never too early to start studying for OWLs. Harry, Ron, and Ginny on the other hand were spending their day off of cleaning house in a much more practical way: Exploding Snap.

This serene scene of average adolescence was disrupted by a combined cry of the Weasley twins calling for "GINNY!"

The youngest Weasley nearly got knocked off the landing as both her boxily built brothers ploughed into her with a running tackle. It took a minute for anyone's mind to catch up with the events taking place and once they did, they wished they hadn't. For where usually they would expect to see two gruff-looking Gryffindor Beaters with matching grins worthy of perpetually naughty toddlers, they instead found long ringlets of red held up in pigtails by lace bows, full length poufy dresses in pink and lavender trimmed with beaded pearls, and painted faces in a 1920's style.

"What... the... hell...?" Ron finally spoke for everyone present.

"Oh, isn't it just wonderful?" gushed Fred in a falsely high voice, pulling out a fan and waving it in front of his face while batting his elongated eyelashes at his little brother.

"Black and Lupin did something fun this time!" George chimed in in matching tone, continuing to rub his cheek against his little sister's, smudging his blush all over the side of her face.

"It was a marvellous idea..." Fred insisted once more.

"Now Ginny won't be alone any more!"

"Isn't that wonderful?"

"Now that we can all be sisters, we can exchange clothes..."

"And do each other's hair..."

"And make up..."

"And Ron and the others can have this happen to them, too!"

"Yes, and then we can be the Seven Weasely Sisters!"

By this point in time Ginny and Hermione were both laughing quite hard at the boy's antics and Harry was only able to sit in stunned silence that the twins wouldn't be too embarrassed to even dare showing their faces while dressed like that. Ron, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly how to take to that last line. Pushing himself away from them until his back was pressed against the wall behind him, he held his wand in their direction and threatened, "Try it, and die."

* * *

The day had proven to be rather eventful as a whole for the five Li siblings. Twice more they had been chased from shops along the side alley because of Syaoran's pestering of the owners. These people did not seem too comfortable discussing their merchandise in too great of detail, nor were they very willing to divulge their sources in acquiring said wares.

But it was getting late, and they had spent most the day here wandering up and down the two alleyways. So when Fanren began whining that she was getting hungry, they all agreed that it was time to call it a day. Now, as they made their way back out to the muggle part of London, they bickered back and forth on where they ought to eat.

"**We're in England! We should take advantage of that and have a real British meal.**" Fuutie insisted.

"**I want pizza. We should go find somewhere that we can order pizza at!**" Fanren announced.

"**Pizza? In these clothes? Are you out of your head?**" Feimei complained, indicating their high-class dresses and expensive ornamentation.

"**Rich people can like pizza too...**" Fanren grumbled.

"**We are ****not**** going for pizza.**" Syaoran piped up, intent to nip the insuring argument at the bud.

"**You can order a pizza to our room when we get back to the hotel, if you want it so badly.**" Sheifa added, backing her brother up.

"**Oh, ****fine.**" Fanren huffed, being outranked by the other two.

"**If we are to be going out, we ought to go somewhere with class.**" Fuutie insisted once more.

"**We ****always**** go to places 'with class', I want to have ****fun**** for once!**" Fanren whined.

"**Fanren's right, we always have to play to the crowds back home. But no one here knows who we are! So can't we just this once slum it? Even if just a little?**" Feimei begged.

"**We should go to a common restaurant.**" Syaoran interjected. "**A stake house, or an Italian place. I don't much care which, but I'm sort of in the mood for pasta.**"

Sheifa and Fuutie looked to each other, Sheifa shrugged and Fuutie responded with a sigh. "**Very well. An Italian restaurant it is...**"

* * *

6:37 PM

The day was slowly marching onwards into evening inside Grimmauld Place. The mounted House Elf heads still occasionally pulled a face as you wandered past them, and the children still sat together playing exploding snap on the landing in order to keep out of the way. However, the pent up energies of the four tricksters locked within these walls was finally beginning to subside after a full day's worth of play.

Sirius reached down and ruffled Harry's hair in passing, earning a half-hearted protest from his god son as he, Remus, and Tonks turned and made their way down one of the halls towards the twins' room. There was a faint zap sound as Sirius stepped down and what felt like a static shock jolted up his spine followed by a quiet pop. Both Remus and Tonks turned to see what caused the sound and broke into laughter at the sight.

A slightly dazed Sirius stood with every long black strand of hair on his whole head standing on end. The afro-like style easily reached from one end of the hall to the other. Sirius pulled a face at their amused reactions as he prodded gently at his ridged locks of gravity defying hair. "They're solid... there's no give to them at all..." he informed the other two.

"There's no way with all that hair you'll ever manage to get through the door," Remus pointed out around a snicker.

"So, you think this is funny, do you?" Sirius asked with a growl. It was his 'I'm pretending to be angry at you now' look, so Moony wasn't the least concerned.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I find this quite amusing!" Remus replied with a confident nod. Sirius pulled his smile that always meant trouble, but Remus stood his ground. That is, until Sirius snatched him by the arm and tugged the startled wolf into the spell effect as well.

As Remus stood and tested the lengths of his hair, Sirius and Tonks gave out a hearty laugh. "Ah, I see what you mean; this is quite a funny situation!" Sirius cheered.

"How very mature of you..." Remus sneered through a smile, sticking his tongue out at his childhood friend.

"How very mature of both of you," Tonks pointed out at their childish behaviour. She realized her mistake in pulling attention to herself when the two canine Marauders eyed her hair and then exchanged side-long glances and smirks growing on their lips as Remus once more tilted his head as a signal that they should begin.

Taking a quick step back out of their easy reach, Tonks held up her hands as if to ward them off. Padfoot cocked an eyebrow at her; Moony lowered his head down between his shoulders. Holding up one finger in the pose of a street performer, Tonks brought her thumb to her mouth and blew as if she were blowing on a whistle. Suddenly, her short pink hair stood on end all by itself. "Ta-daaaa...!" she said once she was done metamorphing herself.

Both men began laughing, which she quickly joined in on, as they laughed at each other and themselves for a good five minutes. Today had been fun. Now if they could only figure out how to get through the door like this, so that they could continue on their way...

* * *

"**Let's go, oh dearest prodigy...**" Sheifa teased.

"**Don't call me that.**" Syaoran growled angrily.

"**Xiao Lang? Are you alright?**"

"**No.**"

Sheifa slipped farther into the room, closing the door behind her so the others wouldn't eavesdrop so easily. She came up to his bed, which she could only barely see in the dark room. She sat down at his side and ran her fingers tenderly through his hair. "**What's wrong, You di?**" she asked, voice full of motherly compassion.

"**I'm not worthy of leading the Clan!**" he cried, "**I'm no good at anything!**"

Sheifa was rather surprised by this, where had this new line of thought suddenly sprouted from? "**Don't be ridiculous! You're the young heir, the product of generations of breeding, you-**"

"**Right!**" Syaoran insisted, when he looked up at her, she saw tears in his eyes and noticed that he had that little pink teddy bear in his arms.

She blinked at him. Did this bear have something to do with what he was on about? "**Ok, you've lost me.**"

"**I was supposed to be this great prodigy, this miracle child produced by the ultimate breeding plan, and yet when I was faced with the task of retrieving the Clow Cards, I couldn't do anything! I was useless! A rankless nobody outshined me in every aspect...**" He choked on a sob of guilt and shame, but continued to talk anyway, feeling relief in finally getting it off of his chest. "**I couldn't even help, I was nothing! She took everything that I was supposed to be, and she did it so sweetly, with such a nice smile, that I can't even be mad at her!**"

"**Do you blame yourself for not hating her?**"

"**I'm supposed to hate her! I'm expected to... But she's so... and just... how could I do anything other then fall in love...**"

"**Is she really that wonderful?**" Sheifa asked, "**You have always been someone who had an untouchable heart; you never smiled, and hardly even talked unless you were being forced to. You were always kind, helping anyone who lived, but you never felt anything beyond a sense of duty. For someone to so completely gain your love, I have to be impressed with her and love her myself.**"

"**I'm not kind, I'm selfish! I've always done everything for myself. But not her, she was always helping people, thinking of others, and didn't even need a reason to do so, she just did it. Even me; no matter how mean I was or what I did to her she always looked at me with that smile and did her best to help me in whatever it was that I wanted. She was always cheering for me, even if I was against her...**"

"**Is that what your type is? I can see how you could fall for someone like that. I envy you for finding such a girl.**"

"**It doesn't matter, nothing will come of it. I'm going to be at Hogwarts for the next seven years, how could I even think of asking her to do something like wait for me? There are too many people who love her, it's too impractical. And even if by some chance I could talk her into waiting, and she did wait, and everything else went wonderfully, the Elders would never agree to such a union, and I have to live for the Clan, not for myself.**"

Sheifa was silent for a while, not really sure what she wanted to say. Finally, she said the only bit of comfort she could manage to think of. "**And that, You di, is why you are the perfect candidate for Clan Leader. You will forever put the people first, even above yourself. And as much as I hate seeing you do it, it is what is for the best, and it is the mark of a true and wonderful leader,**" and with that she stood and left her brother's room.

She came out to the impatient faces of the other three sisters. "**It took you long enough!**" grumbled Fanren.

"**Where is he?**" Fuutie asked suspiciously.

"**He's meditating. He'll come down later to join us when he's done.**" Sheifa explained.

"**That was a long time to be in there to tell us that much...**" Feimei pointed out, smelling gossip that she wasn't being involved in.

"**I'm hungry, let's go.**" was all Sheifa replied with, making it clear to all that she wasn't going to indulge their curiosity.

* * *

Well, THAT took a good deal longer than it ought to have. Some of those scenes were like pulling teeth, I swear. But the plot finally decided to give its first half-hearted appearance, and there should be only one more chapter (maybe two) before everyone is finally off to Hogwarts. And to make my excuse for why Harry and company have been rather absent since the chapter about the letter, I would like to remind people that this story follows Order of the Phoenix as far as most details are concerned and will only deviate once there comes to be a reason to deviate. As things stand now, the only event that would cause a change is the first letter's arrival. Seeing as that would honestly only warrant a passing "okay, that's really weird" from Harry's group, and they have nothing at all to work on, it's not enough to sufficiently send the storyline spiralling down a totally new and unrelated path. Therefore, as far as Harry Potter's cast is concerned, their actions continue to basically follow the events that took place within the original book. In other words, they spend the whole time cleaning mold off of things. I don't think there's a need to write 50 pages about Harry and friends cleaning, and the conversations don't yet have enough sustenance to really fill out a whole scene. It will be spoken of, just not yet. They have a few more weeks to live through before that conversation happens. So to sum up, yes, Harry will have a leading role in the story, but that role really only comes into center stage after the prefect badges arrive. And for the readers who want me to hurry up and get more of this done, I shall tell you the secret to get me interested in writing something: ask questions, make comments, tell me what you find funny, tell me what confuses you or annoys you. Let me have proof that my readers are actually paying attention to what I'm writing, and it will give me the drive to write so much more.


End file.
